My contribution and plans for the association.

I came to know from the website of IAMI that it had 550+ members. I thought that there was an opportunity to interact with so many esteemed members of medical informatics fraternity and hence I decided to join the association. I requested the Secretary to give me list of members from Pune, but I was told that such information was not available with the association, which had “informatics” in its name. The record made available to me was in the form of excel file in which there were columns for membership number, name, address containing street+city+pincode, e-mail and telephone number. I reorganized the sheet and developed proper address book for the association. This was my first contribution to the association. During the process I realized that we have only 273 email addresses even if the membership number is 550+. I did request the organizers of conference and office bearers to communicate with all members by post and request them to send their email addresses to the association. Unfortunately these suggestions and requests did not find any takers.

I have been participating in the discussions on the googlegroup. I had taken up responsibility of compiling various opinions, which came up in the topic of Unique Identification Number and its use in Healthcare. Since the document had contribution from only 10 members, I asked for permission from the executive committee to send emails to individual members. Some more members contributed their views, and many praised that the document had shaped up well. However I realized that out of 273 emails, 73 returned undelivered. This means that only 200 members of 550+ are getting information regarding discussions and events, out of which not more than 20 participate in the discussions. I feel that this is pathetic for the organization, and I wish to improve on all these accounts. Therefore I would like to set following objectives for myself if elected to the post of secretary.

1) To update members list with latest communication information from current 50% to at least 75%.

2) To increase number of members by 10% per anum and increase their participation in activities of IAMI from current 5% to at least 25%

3) To increase number of activities as per aims and objectives of association in the form of essay competitions, symposia, seminars both online and offline.

4) To impart training in medical informatics to people who are interested, by conducting workshops for members as well as non-members.

5) To increase awareness regarding medical informatics in general population by publishing articles in newspapers, magazines and IMA journals.

My Background

1) M.B.B.S. (1982) M.D. (Pediatrics) (1987)

2) Member of students association. Held posts for various activities. (Indian Games Secretary, Founder of Photography Club BJMC). President of Medicos Legal Aid Association, which helped 50+ students to get admission to post-graduate courses to which they were entitled. Argued Public Interest Litigation in Bombay High Court and Supreme Court of India for and on behalf of the association. (1988-90)

3) Trained at Duncun Guthrie Institute of Medical Genectics, Glasgow U.K. (1991)

4) Started career in Healthcar IT, as domain consultant with software company working in image processing. Helped development of KaryoSoft, a chromosome analysis software solution, which was presented and was highly appreciated at Asia Pacific Conference on Medical Genetics, Bangkok, and International Conference on Medical Genetics, Pune, India (1992-94). Developed interest in database management during this period.

5) Started 10 beded, Pediatrics, Obstetric and Gynecological hospital in partnership with wife who is a gynecologist, with own cytogenetics laboratory and neonatal ICU. (1994)

6) Developed ‘Hospital Management System’ for own hospital, Clinical Database Management System for various specialists and Angiography reporting system which is being used by several cath labs. (1995-97)

7) Developed MeDiWiND™, a software for integration of medical data and its statistical analysis, being used by 250+ doctors working as consultants in small, medium and institutional hospitals. (1997-2007)

8) Selected for Fellowship program in biomedical informatics organized at Marine Biological Laboratory by National Library of Medicine, NIH, USA (2008). I have Privilege of being only Indian Doctor to have been conferred the honor since 2000.

9) Independently conducted 3 workshops on medical informatics and trained 150 participants from medical college and software companies. (2008-09)

10) Workshop syllabus and contents approved by Executive Committee, IAMI. Conducted workshops on behalf IAMI at Pune. Practical acclaimed by Jim Cimino (NLM)

11) Participated in workshop on patient safety organized by ICHA and presented use of information technology in patient safety on behalf of IAMI. Initiated discussion on web based anonymous medical error reporting in IAMI_GEN and developed prototype website which is now being constructed for release.

12) Initiated discussion with authorities of CDAC regarding starting training program in medical informatics in Sept 2008. After deliberation with medical informatics group and advanced computer training school officials, course for post graduate diploma in healthcare informatics launched. Invited by Director General of CDAC to brief media, during press conference organized by ACTS, for launch of program. (Aug 2009.)

13) Invited as guest lecturer at 12th National Workshop on ‘Biomedical Informatics and Communication’, organized by Director, JBTDRC. (Wardha, 20 Nov 2009)

14) Developed web based clinical database system which offers recording of information for all clinical specialties and super specialties. Being launched in January 2010.