InnoHEALTH magazine interviews TrioTree Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Hospitals, like any other modern organization, increasingly rely upon IT systems for a wide variety of administrative and clinical functions. These establishments are highly complex in terms of processes, which can have constant activity 24/7×365. Also, we must not ignore the fact that most of the equipment and diagnostics technologies used in medicine are using highly computerized components. This entire network of devices, equipment and systems that often require connection to external systems, is a very critical and complex environment to control.
Cybersecurity helps in keeping the information of the patient confidential for legal purposes and also prevents cybercrimes. With increasing cyber crimes nowadays, InnoHEALTH magazine took initiative to interview some cybersecurity providers who can help become resilient and mitigate the crisis.
Disha Soni and Prateek Malhotra interviewed Mr. Surjeet Thakur, Cofounder & CEO, TrioTree Technologies Pvt Ltd on behalf of InnoHEALTH magazine.
- As a preface, would you like to tell us a little about yourself, and how your services and products impact the health sector?
We are an exclusive Healthcare IT company, and have all the offerings related to hospitals to make it fully operational and paper-lite facilitating in-premise, cloud, as well as mobile computing. Our solutions include HIS/EHR/EMR for Hospitals, Clinics and Diagnostic Centres with clients in India, UK, Malaysia and Middle east. Started in 2012 and with more than 50+ Healthcare Facilities, 7000+ beds and 10 million records. - What type of healthcare set-ups make up the majority of your business?
Though our offering is for all types of HCFs, the majority of business are 150+ bedded hospitals. - How has the health IT industry changed over the past few years and what are the major changes you have seen concerning the adoption of digitization in the healthcare sector in the last five years?
Digital Health has evolved over the time. During initial days, it was only the Operations and Billing which was used extensively and gradually adopted in departmental systems like Radiology (PACS), Laboratory and Pharmacy. Recently, the focus has shifted to clinical documentation as well as Patient experience. Both of these give an immense push to overcome the traditional challenges of user reluctance and other behavioral issues which were impediment to the change. The newer generation practitioners which are very tech-savvy, government regulations including management expectations is what is helping the health digital landscape a push. - What are the main security risks that a practice faces when shifting from the paper-based to electronic records? What are some of the best ways to minimize those risks?
While transitioning from paper based to electronic records, the main security risk is “data going in wrong hands” and “data not being accessible when required”. The best way to minimize these risks is to ensure that the infrastructure is robust. - At your end what security compliances and practices do you follow?
We are ISO 27001:2013 and ISO 9001:2015 certified companies and the user access management is thoroughly regulated. The access to infrastructure/server is only to relevant people and is monitored every 30 days. - Would you like to share any cyber incidents that you have faced in the recent past in your setup or at your clients and how did you handle it?
Recently, there was an article published by an ethical hacker which showed vulnerabilities at the client servers and also showed servers being compromised. We immediately informed them to ensure that the server, network as well the application security measures are readdressed and rules changed to ensure there is no threat. - What is your assessment of the upcoming Personal Data Protection bill, will it impact your business? What challenges do you see for the health sector?
The Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill is very much required as it ensures that “data doesn’t go in wrong hands without consent”. Since there is no regulation as of now, there are many organizations which are taking undue advantage of this. This might have any impact to our business as we ensure safekeeping and no data is shared with any 3rd party. - How do you think enforcement of the proposed DISHA act will impact your business?
DISHA is a very welcome step from the government to ensure it has relevant and right information about its citizens. It would ensure electronic health data privacy, confidentiality, security and standardization and provide data for establishment of National Digital Health Authority and Health Information Exchanges. This would ensure the communication and sharing of RIGHT data of the patient/citizen and plan a better plan of care. This would also ensure the government agencies to plan for the healthcare budget funding based on the population health. - In regards to improved security in the digitisation journey of Indian health sector. What is your advice to healthcare delivery organisations?
One of the foremost advice for healthcare facilities would be to “treat data and its sensitives with utmost care”. This is an asset and not a liability and hence they should ensure adequate infrastructure measures and its spending to ensure data is safe and secure. - With AI and other emerging technologies in mind. What are the opportunities and challenges you see in handling large scale health data? New job roles that you foresee in regards to data protection and processing?
I have heard many times that there is a perception that AI, ML and other newer technologies like cognitive computing etc would take away jobs on healthcare and also would make the entire treatment mechanical and take away the humane touch. IMO, nothing of that sort would happen. The technological advancements in healthcare is just a step to assist in better and efficient care and definitely not to replace. It would act as a “coach” to the doctors and definitely not “replace” them in the entire value chain. One of the challenges we face in India is that we are still primitive in terms of capture of the data. So, while we evolve to capture more and more data, we have to ensure we keep our safeguards to ensure data protection. Government and Regulations have a big role to play in ensuring that. Data Scientist, Data Manager, Data security experts are few of the new roles that would be required by many IT companies, data companies as well as HCFs. - What are your future plans and any message for our readers?
While we intend to extend our services and operations to APAC and EMEA, the focus is also to build products which use AI, ML etc to give seamless experience to the clinicians to help them give efficient patient care. Our focus would also be to strengthen the features and offerings on the mobility platform as the world is evolving to adopt mobility and use it in all the streams within the healthcare administration and clinical care including patient engagement and experience.
Interviewed by: Disha Soni and Prateek Malhotra
