The 5th edition of MEDICALL expo was inaugurated by the Vice Chancellor of Dr.MGR Medical University, Dr.Mayilvahanan Natarajan at Chennai trade centre on August 6th at Chennai. Concurrent exhibitions on Rehabilitation products, Rehab Expo and laboratory equipments, Medicallab was held during medicall expo

More than 8000 visitors including hospital owners, distributors, embassy officials, purchase mangers, hospital administrators and biomedical engineer visited the three day event. A trade delegation from west Africa and Hong Kong were past of visitors.

Around 400 exhibitors from India, China, Taiwan, Germany, Italy and England participated in the show. The exhibitors participated with the objective of meeting new clients, to seek agents, to display new products, to serve existing customers, to assess the market potentials. The visitors came with the objective of purchasing equipments for their hospitals, learning newer technologies, searching for partners and academic exchange.

Wide variety of products including Furniture, OT lights, Tables, Building materials, Ambulance, laboratory equipments, Software, Endoscopes, Ventilators, ICU monitors, Modular OT, Hospital garments, Waste management products, Sterilization equipments, Radiology equipments, Rehabilitation equipments etc., were displayed by various exhibitors.

Two national and two international seminars were organized during the show. Seminar on Audit in hospitals attracted hospital owners from various parts of the country.

Mr. Manivannan from Parama helathcare spoke on Operational audit. He gave a deep insight on the various areas of revenue leaks and methodologies to arrest them.

Mr. Ananthapadmanaban from Kovai Medical Center and hospital stressed the importance of energy audit in reducing the power consumption in hospitals.

Mr. Sethuraman, Partner, KPMG, deliberated on various aspects of financial audit in hospitals.

Dr. Ramsubramanian from Apollo Hospitals, enumerated various strategies to reduce infection in hospital.

The second day seminar on cost control in cost hospitals was well received by hospital administrators.

Mr. Ramesh Emani’s lecture on role of IT in hospitals, threw light on various departments which benefit from IT integration.

Dr. Deepali, Inlakhs Budhani hospital spoke on reducing waste using lean management techniques in healthcare, this technique, which was earlier used by manufacturing sector is now found useful in healthcare to rescue the treatment cost.

Dr.Manivannan from KMC hospital spoke on optimizing resources and gave few examples of how Business intelligence helps to keep hospitals healthy.

Mr.Manivannan’s lecture, on Analyzing financial reports, enlightened the audience on the complicated topic.

The visitors felt the seminars helped them to update their hospital management skills and the exhibition helped them to upgrade their hospital.
The next MEDICALL show is planned in Kolkata in February 2011 and at Chennai in August 2011.

The 5th edition of the MEDICALL 2010 and 2nd Edition of MEDICALLAB 2010 began on Aug 6th 2010. In conjunction with MEDICALLAB 2010, we had an interactive Seminar on Molecular Diagnostics.

The Seminar was attended by more than 100 delegates from India, USA, UAE and Mauritius. The delegates were keen to know more about the latest developments in this field.

The Seminar was inaugurated by Dr Suchirta Mannivannan, leading Gynecologist and Dr CN Srinivas,Leading Pathologist. Dr Rekha Pai from Molecular Biology Dept, CMC Vellore introduced to all the basics of the Molecular Biology, diagnostics and the history. Her main keep points were that the dept of Molecular diagnostics are rapidly developing in field of Diabetes and communicable diseases.
Dr Rajan Dewar from Harvard Medical School, USA enlightens the delegates on how to set up a Molecular Diagnostics lab in under sourced Country like India. He also delivered session on the utility of the Molecular Diagnostics in haemato-Oncology. His main stress was to build upon the needs of the Physician and Oncologists who can support the Basic Science Lab and also develop Research lab. In this way the Demographical differences can be highlighted to World and Also put Protocols for practice of Personalised medicine. As an Active member of Association of Molecular Pathology and College of American Pathologists, he enlightened how the Association of Indian Pathologists of North America (AIPNA) helps Lab professionals from India to develop the Molecular labs, implement quality assurance and develop centres of Excellence in Research. He informed that The Members of AIPNA were readily accessible to Indian Lab professionals to host scientific activities and educational events like CME and Workshop.

He also introduce to lot of Cost effective ways of Doing Molecular Diagnostics like having network of Lab heads in city, state in bringing centralisation of efforts to cut down costs on these expensive tests. The layout of the labs and also the design are very important to prevent cross contamination which alters the report. He agreed that the Current costs of these tests are expensive but can be subsidised if group of Scientists pool the resources and sign an under standing.

Dr Todd Barry,Director of Clarient Diagnostics,USA was another international speaker who helped us to understand Basics of FISH and Genetics in Solid tumours. He summarised the new ASCO guidelines on utility of the FISH (Fluorescent in Situ hybridisation) techniques for the Breast Cancers. The HeR2 receptor study is very important in Prognostication. He also educated the delegates on the ideal requirement for processing Breast cancer specimens. The Solid tumour FISH and utility of the same in Lymphomas, Multiple Myeloma, small cell tumours and Gastric Carcinomas were also discussed. Dr Camilla Rodrigues,Microbiologist,Hinduja hospital,India gave an insight of the emerging Drug resistant Tuberculosis strain in normal and AIDS patient. She spoke on the new Rapid Confirmatory TB test which was patented by her lab and is going commercial in next few months. She insisted a personal discussion with the clinician and Microbiologists when a case of drug resistant Tuberuculosis is met with. The Personalisation of the medicines for the Infectious disease like TB is important so that we curtail the spread of Antibiotic resistant strains. Her talk also included the minimum Requirement for Biosafety in Mycobacteriology lab.

Dr Ira Goud,Cytogeneticist from Hyderabad motivated and touched everyones’ heart by depicting about fifteen cases of pediatric cytogenetics abnormality. She also insisted on Good Counselling services which are much essential in practice of Cytogenetics. Very important diagnosis can be missed if the cytogenetics is not done on dysmorphic children was her motto of her talk.

The most important aspect of the seminar was that Every speaker took the delegates to world of Personalised medicine, demystified that Molecular diagnostics are Too expensive and educated how to network to other to have a common platform to discuss issues in India. They also proposed to have a small forum for networking. The Multimedia of each speaker was excellent with video clippings, animations and photos of their lab and work. The seminar concluded with Vote of thanks and question and Answer session.

A one day seminar on an overview about the Accreditation of Hospitals and Healthcare organisations by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards was held on the 8th of August at the Medicall 2010 and this event was organized by Chennai based Management Consulting organization, Value Added Corporate Services P Ltd. ( www.valueadded.in )

Australian Council on Healthcare Standards International (ACHSI) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS). ACHSl delivers accreditation and quality improvement programs to health care organisations throughout the world. The standards and program are based on the internationally recognised ACHS standards and program, which are accredited by the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua).

ACHS is the leader in the Australian market with almost a share of 90% in accrediting healthcare organization both in private and public sector. Apart from Australia, ACHS has a strong foothold in the Asia Pacific region working in majority of the South East Asian countries like Honk Kong, Korea, Malaysia, China, Middle East, Srilanka and India.

ACHSI has accredited a lot of organizations in these regions and in India they have accredited the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences in Trivandrum and the Manipal Care and Cure centres in Karnataka. ACHS was also instrumental in helping in our National Accreditation board to meet the International requirements by doing Joint educational workshops and surveyor training.

Dr.Desmond Yen the Executive Director of International Business of the ACHSI and Dr.Bidhan Das of Octavo Solutions delivered lectures on the ACHS Accreditation Standards, their Overview, Clinical Indicators Program and the Benefits of accreditation.

ACHS International consultants are also available to assist countries in the development of their own accreditation and quality improvement programs.

ACHSI has expertise in the development of both indicators and comparative reporting services, including strategic performance analysis (SPA) reports to assist in planning for groups of hospitals and corporations.

ACHSI has a clinical performance indicator program have been developed keeping in view different specialities (Cardiac, Ophthalmology, Gynecology etc.) which is acknowledged as being best in the world.

ACHSI has more than thirty years experience in the development of standards, supporting organisations in the development of their quality framework and in assessing organisational performance against evidence-based and internationally recognised standards.

The program was attended by over 60 representatives from various hospitals from different parts of India. The program gave the participants an insight on the services of ACHSI, Accreditation Program, Membership Program, Clinical Indicators and the international activities of the ACHSI.