Cloudnine Healthcare’s Multi-disciplinary Approach to COVID Management
By Ikyatha Yerasala
Cloudnine Healthcare battled the pandemic by efficiently adopting technology, multi-disciplinary efforts and employee engagement.
In a year of dread and uncertainty, Cloudnine Healthcare, a force to reckon with in maternal and child health, efficiently incorporated technology to serve their customers and patients in times of socially distanced, no-contact service. Cloudnine, which was founded in 2007, offers various services from stem cell banking to fertility and pediatric care. Over the course of the year, Cloudnine not only implemented universal safety precautions, but also ably adopted technology to effectively treat patients via teleconsultation, home delivery of medications and home vaccination services. They also focused greatly on employee engagement to take care of emotional health of frontline workers during distressed times. A multi-disciplinary approach helped Cloudnine combat the pandemic as a team.
Raviganesh Venkataraman,
CEO, Cloudnine Group of Hospitals
How did this organization perform in 2020 and what would they like to do to change the unfavourables? Raviganesh Venkataraman, CEO, Cloudnine Group of Hospitals answers:
What are the lessons that Cloudnine has learned in 2020 during the pandemic and how are you ensuring that you are prepared next time?
The COVID-19 pandemic has massively disrupted healthcare systems and served as a catalyst for needed transformation, pushing HCSs to make significant changes far quicker than they would have done pre-pandemic.
Strengthening of health systems and rapidly reorganizing service delivery is the first lesson learned from COVID. It was extremely important to rethink how we can continue to deliver quality care, along with the radically accelerated adoption of new technologies that will ultimately benefit hospitals and customers both.
Innovation in delivery of care was the next learning. Many countries strengthened their multi-disciplinary collaboration to fight the pandemic.
Taking care of healthcare workers was extremely important. Employee engagement is driven by conscious, direct contact between leaders and employees and during a global pandemic, lines of communication from health system leaders to providers, support staff, and others must remain open, and information shared must be accurate.
COVID-19 has led to implementation of universal safety precautions. It has prepared government bodies to better assist communities during crisis. Almost every country is trying its best to keep the disease at bay to avoid repeating the nightmares of SARS and MERS.
This pandemic has reiterated the importance of ‘an ounce of prevention is better than the cure’ and has psychologically prepared mankind to combat it.
Telemedicine got clinical spotlight due to COVID. Has the system adapted to telemedicine?
Telemedicine is now a booming demand. Since the COVID19 outbreak, among many things that have changed is telehealth’s position in healthcare delivery. With increasing public appetite for healthcare options that offer a safe and convenient method of seeking care, telemedicine has seen a sharp rise. According to Global Telemedicine Market Analysis published by Market Data Forecast, the global telemedicine market is projected to rise to $80.61 billion by 2024 from $35.46 billion in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 17.85%. It is definitely more accessible since the doctor is available with just a single click. The patient need not wait in long queues, can get medicines prescribed virtually and get faster treatment.
What changes do you foresee in the healthcare delivery business model?
Adoption of Digital Technology: Multiple forces are reshaping healthcare, including widespread adoption of digital tools as well as multifaceted policy shifts and legislative changes. Leading health systems are also making creative uses of digital technologies to scale up tracking and to make data transparent, both to health systems, managers and the population at large.
Multi-Disciplinary Cooperation: As health systems are working towards containing the virus and treat the afflicted, healthcare workers from every specialty and area of expertise have contributed to an “all-hands-on-deck” effort. The best-performing systems have gone further to develop a carefully targeted, team-based approach to managing the disease at every stage.
System-Wide Approach to Health Governance: The top health systems have been able to more effectively integrate their medical, social and behavioral interventions because they had already adopted a more holistic system-wide approach to overall health governance.
Every health system should:
Track standardized health outcomes across all diseases and make data about those outcomes transparent.
Use digital technology to more easily capture, analyze and share that data among practitioners and patients.
Continuously refine segmentation of the population and develop customized interventions for each.
Strengthen the multi-disciplinary, team-based approach to managing and treating specific conditions and population segments.
Enumerate 3 structural changes to improve healthcare delivery in India.
Technology will connect the dots in the health system and bridge the gap between public and private sector to function with a singular vision of better public health management.
Our community leaders and frontline health workers will play a key role and must continue to be a priority. Clearly defining the roles of ASHAs, ANMs and Anganwadi workers, and enabling them with necessary training can have an exponential impact.
It is critical to leverage this moment to adapt, universalize and bring healthcare closer to people and foster more public–private partnerships.
What role should the Government play going forward?
Maintain and build public trust in public health authorities before and after the pandemic.
Support coordination and efficient use of limited resources among local, national, regional and international public health partners.
Provide relevant public health information to public; to support vulnerable populations having the information they need to make well-informed decisions.
Take measures to minimize social and economic disruption.
What are the measures your hospital is adopting to protect against COVID beyond masking and social distancing?
Preventive Measures taken by Cloudnine (since March 2020):
Screening at entrance every day for every employee entering - for any flu-like symptoms.
Masks provided to all.
Hand sanitizers are placed in all relevant areas. Patients, staff and visitors are encouraged to sanitize their hands at entrance and exit.
PPE (Personal protective equipment) provided to team members along with training on how to use and remove it. They are also being audited on appropriate usage of PPE.
Special care taken while staff travel to different locations in the city.
Regular hand hygiene announcements are done internally.
Hostel staffs are monitored regularly for symptoms and team members are encouraged to report if unwell.
Regular conference calls with units to ensure protocol implementation and staff welfare.
Regular disinfection of all surfaces.
12 hours shift is implemented among nurses to reduce exposure.
Video consultations made available for customers to reduce exposure.
ICN (Infection Control) audit conducted daily at all units.
Code Green mock drill conducted – weekly once.
Donning and Doffing of PPE mock drills conducted by those incharge once a week.
Hostel accommodations provided are carefully assigned to avoid over occupancy in rooms.
Disinfection and Fogging protocols followed at hospital and hostels.
What were some of the tech innovations that helped your organisation in the COVID-19 battle?
While technology played an important role in implementing innovations for customers, we also learned about employee experiences and adopted new technology-based approaches that helped us fight the battle as a team.
Employee Engagement efforts
Our frontline workers have been at the forefront battling the crisis. We took every possible step to address the “fear”. In fact, we set up an emotional support helpline for all staff which is an attempt to reinstate emotional well-being by providing social and emotional support needed during this time of distress. We also had several staff development opportunities through zoom-based online learning & e-modules and dance therapies. We continued to encourage feedback via an employee engagement survey. We had flexible and responsive communications channels with employees which allowed us to showcase several stories that recognized extraordinary actions of staff. Our teams pooled in ideas that led to greater employee satisfaction & engagement.
Tech Innovations:
Launch of Teleconsultation services for customers: We launched a first-of-its-kind teleconsultation service / video consultation service with doctors, made available across Gurgaon, Noida, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai units thereby allowing customers to consult doctors from their homes via video thereby avoiding all the non- essential travel to the hospital. This service is available on mobile phones through “It’s our Baby” app which has currently 100K users. This includes doctor consultations, electronic prescriptions and electronic medical certificates.
Home Vaccination Services: Cloudnine went to the doorstep of customer to provide babies with crucial vaccinations/immunizations they’re missing out on due to the situation.
Doorstep Delivery of Medicines: We collaborated with Dunzo, an all-in-one 24X7 delivery platform to deliver essential medicines to expecting mothers and their new-borns at doorstep. Dunzo's no-contact delivery ensured safe delivery.