After a hiatus of around one-and-a-half years, the state medical education department has finally decided to revive the health management information system (HMIS), that too, with an upgrade. At Rs 269 crore, the latest 'Next Gen e-Hospital' system will be implemented in all medical colleges across the state. The software has been loaded in one computer each in three medical colleges on a trial basis.
“After a one-and-half-year-long inconvenience and hardship faced by patients, the HMIS will be made operational in all 25 government medical colleges and hospitals of the state with an installation of the latest 'Next Gen e-Hospital' system. Training has been provided to staff for operating the new system,” said a senior official from the state health department.
JJ Hospital Dean Dr Pallavi Saple explained that the HMIS was a centralised system that maintains important patient records. A unique identity number is assigned to each patient, enabling access to diagnostic details and treatment progress with a few clicks. “So far, one computer per outpatient department has HMIS in all four facilities comprising the JJ Group of Hospitals. Apart from that, we are still in manual mode,” she said.
After the practice of digitally maintaining the patients' records came to an abrupt end, the hospital staff had no option, but to keep a manual track of the health information. In the absence of the system, it takes up to 15 minutes for registering details of a patient.
Terming the revival of digital record-keeping as need of the hour, the official underlined that the doctors and staff have to maintain records manually, which has increased the workload.
Medical education department Commissioner Rajeev Niwatkar confirmed that the system is on trial basis in a few medical colleges and it will be rolled out in other institutes soon.
What is Next Gen e-Hospital?
Developed by the National Informatics Centre, 'Next Gen e-Hospital' is a cloud-based information management system that aims to improve the nationwide delivery of healthcare services to the citizens. It is based on containerised microservices architecture that can be scaled on the basis of user demand. Designed in accordance with the latest healthcare industry standard, the system is integrated with Ayushman Bharat scheme along with other national/state government health programmes.
