Delhi government’s ambitious cloud-based Health Information Management System (HIMS) is going to be implemented by early next year. The massive project would see every Delhiite get an e-health card and have their medical history available online when they see a doctor after taking an appointment from home.
The process of vendor selection and bidding process has been completed and work is going on a war-footing to streamline the project and place it before the cabinet.
After reviewing the progress of the project along with health minister Satyendra Jain, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal instructed officials to expedite the process. “Delhi government is committed to providing the best and most modern healthcare facilities to people. We want people to access world-class facilities without any problems. HIMS is a monumental step in this direction, so we must be extremely serious about its implementation and expedite the timeline,” he added.
The progress of a helpline and e-health cards was also reviewed by Kejriwal. The government said vendor selection for the helpline would be completed soon and call centers were targeted to be set up in the next three months. A committee of the e-health card project had outlined and reviewed the request for proposal.
After HIMS is implemented, Delhiites would be able to take an online appointment and consult the designated doctor within a fixed time frame.
Plans are afoot to distribute the e-health cards through a door-to-door campaign, apart from providing them at hospitals and other dedicated centers. The card would contain the medical history of patients and they would be able to get treated at any hospital on the HIMS system without the need of carrying medical reports and documents.
The QR code-based cards would be issued on the basis of voter ID and population registry, from which demographic and basic clinical information of each patient would be obtained. Family mapping would be done for health schemes and programs and integrated with HIMS for seamless information exchange.
While HIMS would be implemented in all government hospitals initially, private hospitals would also be connected to it in a phased manner. All patient care services, like hospital administration, budgeting and planning, supply chain management, and back-end services and processes would be brought under this system.
(News source: ToI)
