Timely and accurate diagnosis of a disease can often be the difference between life and death. For a series of critical illnesses, radiology, which includes X-ray, CT scan, ultrasound, MRI and other technologies, is one of the key tools of diagnosis. The availability of competent radiologists is, however, not universal. And without that, the diagnosis is incomplete.
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Radiology images can be viewed and analyzed on a laptop using a browser over a data card connection, without any loss of fi delity. -- Sanjeev, MD |
Sending scans from these machines to radiologists or referring doctors in another place is usually next to impossible, because these are heavy files that can’t be transferred over the Internet easily. And if you try and compress them using traditional compression tools, there is loss of data, which could hamper correct diagnosis.
This is where Medsphere, a Bangalore-based startup claims to have made a breakthrough with its product InstaRad.We spoke to Sanjeev, MD of Medsphere about InstaRad.
What is the idea behind Medsphere? Where did it originate?
The idea behind the company Medsphere is to provide patient care at places and under conditions where doctors with the required expertise are physically not available. The idea originated at one of the international conferences in USA, but took shape in Bangalore.
Our first product is InstaRad. There is a standalone version and an enterprise version. InstaRad is a point-to-multipoint image distribution solution, which allows radiologists or referring physicians to view medical images from anywhere, anytime. Doctors can connect from anywhere using Internet data cards on a laptop or a broadband connection. Multiple doctors can connect simultaneously and discuss the case in real time.
InstaRad Enterprise has a central server, where images are pushed from all the centers. The administrator can manage all the centers and reporting doctors using the rule-based engine. Based on the rules and hierarchies, images are published from remote centers using
a DICOM compliant upload utility to the central server.
They are then routed to the specific reporting center or doctor. With InstaRad, radiology images can be viewed and analyzed on a laptop using a browser over a data card connection, without any loss of fidelity.
Can you give a brief overview of your solution?
The solution is a streaming engine, which enables transfer of radiology images and data over the Internet and works even in situations where bandwidth is not adequate and speeds are as low as 20-30 kbps.
This enables doctors to connect with their respective CT/MR machines (in the hospitals/diagnostic centers) and access the studies of patients who have been scanned and are waiting for the doctor to analyze them.
Alternately, images can be made available instantly over the Internet to specialists who are far away from the location. It typically takes them two to five minutes to see the images they are interested in and send the report back to the center.
Anything in your background that lead to software for medical systems, particularly radiology?
I have an honors degree in science from the Delhi University, a bachelors in engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.
I started my career with Siemens in medical systems, where I got exposed to the radiology part of medicine and later moved on to GE Medical Systems
Between the two of them I spent over 20 years and during this period got tremendous international exposure, being based in Germany and Singapore and also traveling extensively across the world, including the USA. During one of my GE assignments, I was responsible for the business of GE healthcare IT.
What were the big challenges that you faced in creating the solution?
Like they say, nothing is easy. This wasn’t either. Having said that, the big challenge actually came after creating the solution in convincing first ourselves and then the world that we had a good product of international standards, which is reliable and makes no compromise on the high standards required for diagnostics. To put it in other words, testing and validating it was a challenge.
Who are the key team members and what has their contribution been?
Two people from IIT Kanpur, with prior experience with Yahoo, were and are the key contributors. Tapesh Aggarwal is the CTO out of Bangalore. Nishant Mittal is the director of R&D and is based out of the US.
Who was your first customer? How did you win them?
There were actually two doctor friends with whom I had discussed this right at the conception stage. And they were excited about it. They actually contributed to the development
of the product and were also the first two customers.
Did you have to get a number of international certifications? How difficult and time-consuming was the process, particularly for a small organization?
During my professional career, I had been personally involved in ISO and CMMi level 5 certifications. I had also undergone training in HIPAA and had a 6 Sigma green belt certificate. Also, sensitivity to processes and quality was always there. All this made the task of getting certifications, not easy, but definitely less difficult.
Also, we did take help from some international agencies of repute to put our applications together. The process took about four to five months. The certification process made us aware of some of our shortcomings, which we fixed during this process and that was indeed useful.
What are your objectives and what challenges do you see in achieving them in the near future?
We have got more than 70 customers and over 100 installations in India and a couple of them each in Singapore, Malaysia and Afghanistan. Now with international certifications done, we are gearing ourselves for the US and other international markets. This will have its own challenges in terms of visibility and acceptability.
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