Uniting healthcare and retail, Manipal Cure and Care (MCC) is an important reality in the Indian healthcare field. The company was the first to introduce in India the global concepts of holistic wellness therapy and healthcare retail. With the experience and expertise of the best doctors and healthcare practitioners in India, MCC offers a plethora of superior and safer healthcare services at their state-of-the-art health and wellness centers. Be it wellness, beauty, or cosmetic care, MCC’s highly-trained and experienced clinical staff provide the best medical care, ensure customer convenience, and assist customers in every possible way. All of MCC’s clinical practices are in adherence to the strict guidelines laid down by international healthcare organizations. Plans are underway to open high-tech Manipal Cure and Care centers throughout India beginning with cities such as Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmadabad and Hyderabad, and gradually spreading to other parts of India. There are already functioning stores in Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune.

Why the LS Retail journey

Manipal Cure and Care has a business portfolio in both healthcare and retail. However, there was no single solution provider that addressed the complete business requirement across retail and healthcare. For the sake of keeping things simple yet comprehensive in terms of features, the company required two different solutions which would be easily compatible, requiring minimum customization. LS Nav’s features and functionalities were a direct fit with the business requirement. Any gap could be configured as per the business requirement.

The challenge

Manipal Cure and Care realized that they needed an end-to-end solution. One of the biggest challenges was to integrate radically different products into a single solution to manage the diverse business operations. Another was the risk of integrating products/solutions built on two diverse technologies such as Java/J2EE and Microsoft.

POS-related challenges

  • Loyalty Management: the loyalty program needed to not only point distribution, but also account for free medical consultation allotted to loyalty members.
  • Deals: The deals were to be combined with service components like medical consultation, laboratory investigations, and products. Additionally, it was important to be able to create a deal within a deal.
  • Service Items: Unlike products where once sold the cost is realized immediately, service items sold would be only realized once the service is availed, therefore the clinical software should keep an audit and reply on service availed to POS.
  • Health Check availed by company employees required a special feature so that the credit bills and invoice could be raised to the respective companies.
  • Price Variance: Various prices to be addressed at POS.

Clinical software related challenges

Clinical operations/data management requires highly secure data and patient condition management features, that can track care services and proved Electronic Medical Records (EMR), as well as other data like demographic details, medication history, allergies, family and social history, and so on. MCC needed a software that would be able to seamlessly manage all of this data - on top of the retail part.

Results in brief

LS Retail provided a setup that could address the complete business requirements of healthcare retail. LS Nav proved to be an end-to-end integrated solution covering POS, stores, back office, and head office, thus providing the organization with visibility of its transactions. Some of the benefits LS Nav brought include:

  • Seamless integration with the clinical software
  • Standardization of the item/drug masters across the centers
  • Drug master is in line with the CIMS
  • Centralized loyalty management
  • Centralized coupon & inventory management
  • India localization
  • Unique approach and features

“Features and functionalities available in LS Nav fit with the requirements of Manipal Cure and Care. The option of tweaking the functionalities and fine tuning to our requirements was done by the implementation partner, who showed domain knowledge and expertise, quality processes knowledge, consulting strength, and more.” -Balaji Venkatesh Manager ERP, Manipal Cure and Care The implementation team & MCC management were of the opinion that it should have a holistic and integrated EMR solution, thereby the guest EMR can be accessed across the facilities or centers, hence ensuring that guests are taken good care of. This was achieved through the EzEMRx Clinical, where the records can be fetched on demand by the clinicians across the facilities. As the guest EMR is sacrosanct, the team ensured that the EzEMRz Clinical is HIPPA compliant thereby ensuring the confidentiality of the guest EMR. Secondly, two diverse technologies such as Java/J2EE and Microsoft were to be integrated.

HL7 based exchange of information through web services

The EzEMRz clinical application is HL7 compliant; however the Microsoft Dynamics NAV was not HL7 compliant. The implementation team (PwC + EzEMRz + MCC) decided that the interface between two systems should be done through HL7 messaging standards, both in terms of data security and data consistency. The team from PwC build the HL7 standards in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and LS Nav and the data exchange between the systems is seamless.

Identification of data exchanges points between two systems

One of the challenges was to identify a methodology wherein the two software solutions could communicate without affecting each other's operating parameters. Accordingly, the business process flow was re-designed to optimize the individual systems strength with the key focus on the customer satisfaction and user friendliness. For example, early on the team made a decision that any clinical-related information would be captured by a clinical system (EzEMRx) and any data pertaining to the billing information would be captured by the billing system (LS Nav and Microsoft Dynamics NAV). This was decided to ensure that the relevant system would drive the data requirement considering the business requirements, thereby ensuring data consistency and reliability.

CIMS integration with clinical management system

The key benefits or advantages for the MCC management (includes clinical and SCM management) are:

  • Standardization of the drug database across the facilities, which will provide optimized solutions to the SCM team for monitoring the inventory level and also sales figures by center
  • Reduction of the medical errors by incorporating features like drug-to-drug alerts / drug-to-guest allergies alerts, to accurately inform the clinicians before they prescribe any medicine
  • MCC team made a decision to print the prescriptions, counter-signed by the doctor concerned, thereby reducing the transcribing errors by the pharmacist. Dosage and mode of administration are also clearly legible for the guest / patient.
  • The prescription entered by the clinicians is also available in the POS (Billing system) of NAV, thereby saving time and also reducing further the risk of transcription errors by the pharmacist.

Integration with the medical equipment (laboratory + cardiology equipment)

The implementation team made the decision to build a two-way interface with the medical equipment, so that the investigation orders are sent directly to the equipment and the results are sent to the guest EMR after validation from the pathologist. The benefits from this approach are:

  • Sample identification by way of unique barcode for each guest’s sample.
  • Reduction of the type errors by the lab technicians while entering the results
  • Quicker access for the clinicians on their desk for faster and efficient delivery of care to the guest.

With LS Nav, MCC can now manage its complex and innovative business from end to end, in one system. The deep integration means fewer errors, quicker operations and lower costs for the company.