Q: How important is health communication?

Effective and well-structured healthcare communication can build staff competence and expertise to improve patient outcomes; attract and retain top talent; standardize learning across your organization; and achieve and maintain quality compliance through focused education.

Q: Please tell us about your company's foray into health communication? What guarantees the authenticity of your products?

Wolters Kluwers is leading global information services and publishing company present in 150 countries. We are providing services including legal, regulatory, financial and health to huge number of clients. In health vertical, close to 1 million healthcare professionals are our customers. For decision making, they need exclusive inputs, critical insights, integrated information and we provide it through special softwares.

Let me give you an example. If you are a doctor running a hospital and have a question while treating a patient, we provide clinical evidence based peer reviewed information. Our offering is a point of care solution, One of our softwares is used by 70 percent of doctors, earning us trust and brand value. It has been validated by 60 researchers and 500 doctors across world. The Harvard resaerchers found out that it saved more than 11,400 lives more while used in a chain of hospitals. The National University of Singapore Hospital did a survey and concluded that the 30 percent doctors changed their opinion on using it. The information is available in India on smartphone for all. There is real time updation on any new findings each day.

Q: How do you view 'Digital India' campaign of the government and its relevance here?

Our plans are aligned with govt agenda. These include three things: Skill, Digital India and Make in India. The skill enhancement of doctors and nurses in a long way will contribute in streamlining the loopholes. It will also go from private to public institutes too for sure.

There will be 206 million smart phone users by next years. Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi rightly talks about digital India and there is no doubt that digitization of health services can make the system more robust. Infact, all of our content is available digitally. We are also developing the relevant solutions locally and strongly in support of 'make in India' programme. Once we developed it, we can take it to emerging markets.

Q: What is the kind of services are you looking forward to provide through this software 'Lippincott Gurukul' ?

The product is a complete guide of practical solutions to communication issues in healthcare environments. This course is designed by healthcare professionals and care givers of various levels and is aimed at all staff in a healthcare organization like doctors, nurses, healthcare administrators and support staff. The approach is straight-forward, with story-based learning and covers all essential aspects of communication for healthcare professionals. In nutshell, it is for better care and cure.

There are close to 5.2 million medical injuries in India and Dr Alex Thomas who is chair of Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations (CAHO) came up with conclusion that 60 percent of these are due to miscommunication. Together with Dr Thomas who is accredited by CAHO, we are launching the product. It was meeting of minds and we are now looking at developing the spectrum of similar e-learning platforms. For example, in India, there is shortage of 15 lakh nurses with annual 20-30 percent attrition rate. Therefore, to build expertise and train existing manpower, we are launching Lippincort Nursing Solution shortly.