Online Medicine

NEW DELHI: ESI hospitals providing healthcare facilities to workers covered under the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) will be soon required to have ISO certification. Minister of state for labour and employment Shri Oscar Fernandes has said that the certification will be made mandatory so that hospitals provide world class medical facilities to workers of both organised as well as unorganised sector.

In the first conference of revenue officers of ESIC, the minister said ESIC revenue officers should dedicate themselves to the cause of healthcare of workers and should aim at increasing the number of beneficiaries to at least 4 crores, same as EPF members.

The minister added that the doctors and staff at these hospitals would be given special training to meet the shortage of medical personnel in the country.

Labour and employment secretary Sudha Pillai said that the government will ensure that the insurance scheme is expanded to new areas. The latest figures show that during 2007-08, the scheme was implemented in 37 new areas covering nearly 98,000 workers. The total number of beneficiaries were 3.94 crore. During the year, contribution income increased to a record high of Rs 3,249 crore against the target of Rs 2,450 crore, thereby registering an increase of Rs 800 crore which is 32.61% higher than the target, Ms Pillai said.

The motive of this conference was to interact with field workers and make them aware about their role in the implementation of policies and programmes of the ESIC and the ministry. Insurance inspectors and other officials were also asked to improve efficiency so that delivery system could be improved.

BANGALORE: Pharmacy chain Medplus Health Services will open its first five regional diagnostic centres in the next two days and has plans for 50 more by the end of the fiscal as it diversifies into the lucrative market for diagnostic services.
The regional diagnostic centres for routine tests will first be launched in Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. A total of Rs 20 crore will be invested to set up the 50 centres.


MedPlus Pathlabs, a fully-owned subsidiary of MedPlus Health Services, has been operating a clinical reference laboratory for complex clinical tests for the past eight months. “We want to be the first port of call for consumers, both for their pharmaceutical as well as diagnostic needs, MedPlus PathLabs COO Surendra Mantena said.

Being part of the organised segment, it would attempt to bring standardisation to the market for clinical testing services, he observed. “There are 40,000 diagnostic labs in the country, mostly individually run, which accounts for the high degree of inconsistency in the services.” The chain plans to add 600 outlets by March 2009, with 70% of these as franchises.

“Increasing access to healthcare and expanding the preventive care segment have ensured huge potential for growth in the Rs 500 crore diagnostic services market, which is growing at 25%, and is likely to grow at a much faster rate,” Dr Mantena said.

MedPlus claims to have a 30% share of the organised pharmaceutical retail market, with a turnover of Rs 100 crore in the last fiscal. It is aiming for leadership in diagnostic services with a 40%-50% market share.

BANGALORE: Infosys Technologies has completed the deployment of a patient management tool for an initiative to improve healthcare access for rural and underserved patients. The company collaborated with the University of New Mexico (UNM) to improve patient outcomes by designing and implementing a web application that facilitates real-time flow and access of inter-operable clinical data among participating health providers as part of Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes).
Project ECHO’s Web-based patient management tool has a web interface that efficiently and securely integrates patient data in real-time from all participating health providers, leveraging Infosys’ Healthcare Integration & Collaboration solution.


Responding to a pressing need to improve Hepatitis-C treatment among rural communities, the UNM Health Sciences Center and the departments of health and corrections developed Project ECHO, funded by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The organisations used teleconferences, telemedicine and the Internet to develop the backbone of the programme.

The Web-enabled software will allow Project ECHO to expand to chronic diseases and health conditions such as HIV, cardiac ailments, mental health disorders, diabetes, autism, substance-abuse disorders, among others.

HYDERABAD: AppLabs, one of the largest independent testing, quality management and certification solutions company, has been named by the US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce Education Foundation (USPAACC-EF) as one of its 50 Fastest-Growing Asian American Businesses.

"We are indeed honoured and delighted to be named among the 50 Fastest-Growing Asian American businesses. This recognition is a testament to our dynamic entrepreneurial spirit, thought leadership in the software testing space and hard work of all AppLabs employees," said Makarand Teje, President and CEO, AppLabs in a release here.

"As world's fastest growing independent software testing company, this award further strengthens our leadership position in the industry, and I am really looking forward to receiving this award on behalf of AppLabs," said Doc Parghi, Senior Vice President of North America, AppLabs.

"We congratulate our 50 Fastest-Growing Asian American Businesses for generating robust growth over the years-yet another indicator that through innovation, hard work and ingenuity, Asian Americans are at the forefront as engines of growth in our national economy," said USPAACC-EF National President and CEO Susan Au allen.

To qualify for the ranking, companies must be owned by one or more Asian Americans (at least 51 per cent ownership), among other eligibility criteria. Based on percentage revenue growth over three years, selection was determined through direct applications and nominations. All finalists and winners were independently verified by the accounting and consulting from of BDO Seidman, LLP, it added.

HOUSTON -- (May 29, 2008) -- The deletion of all or part of a cluster of genetic material known as small nucleolar RNAs on chromosome 15 inherited from the father plays a role in the development of the genetic disorder Prader-Willi syndrome, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in a report in the current issue of Nature Genetics.

"Prader-Willi syndrome is the first disorder known to be associated with the loss of these small nucleolar RNAs," said Dr. Arthur Beaudet, chair of molecular and human genetics at BCM and senior author of the report. Prader-Willi syndrome is characterized by short stature, obesity as a child, developmental delay and other disorders.

The loss of these small nucleolar RNAs is associated with these symptoms, said Beaudet and his colleagues. These RNAs are a departure from the best known role of RNAs, serving as the template for making protein. Instead, they guide chemical modifications of many cellular RNAs with diverse functions, and even possibly messenger RNAs, which are the decoders of the genetic message that results in the production of proteins. Proteins are the workhorses of cells, carrying out most of their functions.

In a study involving the genome of a child with Prader-Willi syndrome, Beaudet and his colleagues found that a deletion of genetic material for a particular cluster of these small nucleolar RNAs called HBII-85 was associated with many of the symptoms attributed to Prader-Willi syndrome in this child.

Studies in mice by other investigators also suggested that the loss of these particular forms of RNA contributed to the problems associated with the disease, said Beaudet and his colleagues.

In an accompanying review of the research, Dr. Jo Peters of the Medical Research Council in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, wrote, "Both the genetics and the phenotype (visible symptoms) of PWS (Prader-Willi syndrome) are complex, and identifying the gene(s) responsible has been a challenge, but we now have the answer."

Others who took part in this research include: Trilochan Sahoo, Daniela del Gaudio, Jennifer R German, Marwan Shinawi, Sarika U. Peters, Richard E. Person and Sau Wai Cheung, all of BCM, and Adolfo Garnica of St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Okla.

Funding for this research came from the National Institutes of Health, the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and the Rare Disease Clinical Research Consortia.

The article is available at http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v40/n6/pdf/ng.158.pdf.