The rise of technology in healthcare is unprecedented. It created an industry, Healthcare Tech, altogether. This healthcare technology is pushing the boundaries of how healthcare is provided and managed. It also has the power to transform our understanding of the functioning of a healthcare ecosystem.
In this new hospital management space, on the one hand, hospitals must provide patient safety along with improved healthcare services, while on the other, they must manage the tremendous flow of information generated by these newer technologies. In the continuing pandemic times, these tasks become unmanageable for most hospitals.
Here is where AOSTA India Private Limited comes to their rescue. AOSTA becomes their tech-arm by providing a complete world-class Healthcare Management Solution (HMS).
The Inception of an Impactful Idea
AOSTA has started its operations as an internal IT team for its parent organization KMCH, a super-specialty hospital in Coimbatore. It has been promoted by a team of doctors, who had the vision to make AOSTA a product company due to its experience of providing operational services to KMCH. BackBone, a comprehensive Hospital Information System (HIS) was created from that exercise.
From its inception, AOSTA grew as an impact player in the Healthcare IT market in India. Initially, it focused on the local geography in and around Coimbatore. Once the product made some noise among the hospital owners, obviously due to good ratings by the users, AOSTA/BackBone got excellent exposure in other parts of the country.
Mr. Aravindan Selvaraj, Director – Sales & Marketing, AOSTA, shared more about the company, its goals, and the future of healthcare tech with Insights Success.
The Thought Leader
Mr. Selvaraj comes with over 25 years of Sales and Business Development experience. An MBA with vast experience in domains like IT, digital media, market research, etc., he brings lots of confidence to the customers on understanding their needs and devising a solution cost-effectively.
He has serviced fortune 100 companies in domains like Ecom, new media, SharePoint, BI, mobility, custom software development, etc. He got the “Best Sales Person” Award from Microsoft through the Partner program in FY 2007 and 2008. He has travelled in markets like US, Middle East, Far East, and Africa, to service big customers for their IT requirements.
Prior to AOSTA, he was instrumental in setting the sales infrastructure in organizations like Vidyutinfo, Webdunia, ChennaiOnline, Times Internet, Vishwak Solutions, Accel Frontline & Scope E-knowledge. In his leisure time, he loves travelling to far-off places.
The Core Value
“Our core value is based on providing meaningful healthcare IT services in line with changing times,” Mr. Selvaraj said.
In terms of priorities, AOSTA is completely focused on patient-service as well as optimal healthcare. “Our flagship product – BackBone HIS/EMR ensures that the patient’s journey in a hospital/clinic is very smooth,” Mr. Selvaraj added.
This way, patients get the correct information during their diagnosis. The EMR, which aims to provide a paperless office environment to a hospital, helps automate the diagnostic process. Mobile apps like Patient Portal helps a patient to register, book appointments online, make payment, access health records etc. This ensures patient-satisfaction all the time.
The Guiding Lights
The founder of the group is Dr Nalla G Palanisamy, a visionary businessman with great acumen and leadership skills. According to Mr. Selvaraj, “Dr. Palanisamy is instrumental in taking AOSTA and the overall group to greater heights with each unit functioning in a profitable manner.”
Mr. Selvaraj added, “He has helped us to leverage the natural synergy we have had in the clinical and administrative domain, thanks to KMCH.” He also said that AOSTA has created a niche advantage in the market due to this, and that the company is able to transcend those advantages to its customers as well.
About the second guiding light of AOSTA, Mr. Selvaraj said, “Our CEO, Dr Mohan Gounder, is based in USA and his technical finesse has helped us to adopt the latest of Healthcare IT practices in our applications. Platforms like EMR, mobile apps etc., are developed with his intense contribution and that proved to be a big differentiator for us.”
Besides, “He has helped to diversify the company with new service offerings like KPO but sticking to the core domain strength of Healthcare and IT,” Mr. Selvaraj added.
AOSTA’s Offerings
The company’s major product offering is BackBone HIS. Besides, it has offerings like EMR, mobile apps for hospital owners, doctors, patients, administrators/managers, and other clinical staff. It also provides managed support to hospitals, for sustained product engineering.
In the recent years, it has also started its KPO operations, which provide back-office support to insurance, real estate, and accounting firms in the US/Canada markets.
Defining Success
While defining success, Mr. Selvaraj said that today, AOSTA is rated as one of the top providers of HIS in the country, which helped the company to expand its markets in other countries. The ratings also helped it to diversify into other services like KPO.
“We take pride in constantly innovating our products and services, in times with the market trends. This is our biggest strength and that helps us to scale new peaks – be it acquiring a big brand as a customer, or expanding market horizons or stitching new alliances etc.,” he said.
Shouldering The Greatest Responsibility
COVID-19 has put additional responsibility on the healthcare sector regarding telehealth trends, hygiene, and safety precautions. When we asked how the company adapted to these challenging circumstances whilst preparing and safeguarding patients and staff for the same, Mr. Selvaraj said, “Like any other IT services, we also had our share of problems with COVID-19. Since we deal with hospitals, when it came to implementing our EMR/HIS solutions, our frontline consultants and support staff were affected during onsite engagements.”
However, he said they had prepared for these contingencies and implemented plans like WFH, hybrid working platforms, sustained connectivity across environments, remote support models, etc. “Thus, we could ensure the safety of our employees and customers,” he informed.
For ensuring optimal service deliveries, Mr. Selvaraj said that the company had leveraged new trends and technologies like all kinds of virtual meeting platforms to good effect. The company had also repurposed its offerings like telemedicine, QR code support, cloud deployments, etc.
His foremost advice to the individuals aspiring to step into the medical technology sector is, “Close the gaps between academics and industry trends. This is possible only with industry-academic workshops at institution levels, internships, etc.”
Envisioning Forward
Talking about the company’s plans, Mr. Selvaraj said, “We always stick to our strength – that is building excellence in our core domain – Healthcare IT.”
About expansion, he said, “We would also like to expand our canvas in building sustained products/services for the Online Marketplace.”
According to him, AOSTA is on the verge of launching many new products catering to the SAAS market.
Testimonials
- Kovai Medical Center and Hospital, Coimbatore
AOSTA’s BackBone HIMS is very comfortable to use and operate. We found many insightful tools in BackBone, and departments like Finance, Front Office, Lab and Pharmacy are found to be very user-friendly.
AOSTA’s backend team has given us excellent support after the rollout thus giving peace of mind when it comes to managing the complete IT BackBone of KMCH.
- Yenepoya Medical University, Mangalore
We have done thorough evaluations of various HIMS systems and finally engaged AOSTA as they gave the best product to us. We @ Yenepoya use AOSTA BackBone across all our hospital streams as their system provides seamless experience to all the stakeholders within the hospital. The ease of use, contemporary best practices, tools like EMR & Mobile interface etc., are some of the highlights of AOSTA platform. We love to work with AOSTA team.
Exhibiting Excellence
- e India Award – For 800 Bedded tertiary care multi-disciplinary super-specialty hospital – In Tamilnadu – Year 2010
- e India Award for 650 Bedded Medical University Hospital – In Karnataka – Year 2013
- Silicon India – AOSTA is one among the 10 most promising companies across India in the Healthcare Vertical – 2014
