 | | There are already several hundred million mobile phones in India, and that number is rapidly increasing. Master's degree student Shabbir Syed Abdul wants to give Indians the option of using the phone to carry information about their medications, allergies and chronic diseases. He reckons the system will save lives. Photo by Jan Fredrik Frantzen, NST. |
Shabbir Syed Abdul is Indian, trained as a doctor in Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg in Russia, and is studying for a master’s degree in telemedicine from the University of Tromsø. In other words, he is truly international. A projection of the modern global market of knowledge, you could say.
Recently, he went back to India to collect data for his master’s thesis, focusing on the challenges inherent in the transition from paper to electronic patient records in Indian hospitals. But his vision goes far beyond the confines of his university thesis.
Essential info on your phone
“As a GP in India and the Maldives, I often experienced that patients would show up without any form of documentation of their previous treatment. Often, they could only show me a copy of a paper record in bad handwriting,” he says.
He found that doctors had a desperate need for better information about the patient’s condition and previous treatment. One way to do that is simply to let the patient carry essential information with him electronically. So why not use a USB stick, or even a phone to do the trick?
“What if you have a seizure and you need help? It could be very useful to carry around with you the information that the doctor needs to help you. Worst of all, not having access to information about your allergies could lead to your death. If the doctor administers a drug that reacts violently with your allergy pills, he could actually kill you when he’s trying to save you.
Especially for elderly people or others with chronic diseases, it is sometimes vital to have access to vital information such as medication, allergies and perhaps a direct number to the hospital for further assistance.
IT and health - the perfect combination
For an Indian, being preoccupied with new technology is more or less a natural turn of events. The huge subcontinent is the birthplace of vast numbers of highly skilled doctors and surgeons as well as very talented computer engineers.
“It was very natural for me to become interested in the combination of IT and medicine, because we Indians have always been very interested in tehcnology,” Shabbir says enthusiastically.
He tells us that the founder of Hotmail, for example, was the Indian programmer Sabeer Bhatia. Vinod Dham, another of Shabbir’s fellow countrymen, is responsible for bringing the Pentium computer chip into the world. And chances are, your computer is running on one of those chips.
“You know, we Indians have always had a passion for innovation and new technologies. Who do you think invented the numeral zero?” he rounds off with a smile. | 
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