Unique e-health card for all Delhi residents by August next year, says Arvind Kejriwal

KEY STORY

• Delhi residents will have a unique e-health card by August next year, the government said Tuesday.

• A cloud-based Health Information Management System (HIMS) will also be implemented across Delhi government hospitals.

• Both have been in the planning stage for a considerable time, with the health card being announced in early 2018.

• The e-health card has been designed as a QR code-based card to collate clinical details of all patients in one place, and ties in with the HIMS, which will store a database of clinical information of those registered.

• Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal discussed the progress of the ambitious project in a meeting with Health Minister Satyendar Jain and officials of the department Tuesday.

• The officials gave a presentation for the implementation of HIMS and issuing e-health cards.

  “The Health Information Management System will be implemented by August 2021 in all Delhi government hospitals.

• The system seeks to target the healthcare delivery process. All the patient care services, hospital administration, budgeting and planning, supply chain management, and backend services and processes will be brought under the system. As far as the deployment model is concerned, the entire system will be on the cloud and digitised.

• This will enable citizens to avail information on one platform, which will help them in emergency cases,” a statement issued by the Delhi government said.

• In the initial stages, the new schemes will be applicable at government hospitals only and will later be extended to private hospitals as well.

  “This management system should be able to provide all healthcare facilities to the people. Other than that, by 2021, every resident of Delhi visiting a hospital should be issued a card to avail of the benefits of the government healthcare services. After issuing cards, we have to ensure that it is integrated with HIMS,” Kejriwal said. Officials said that the card will also ensure that Delhi residents are mapped for all eligible schemes and program.

  CONCLUSION

The government, Jain said, was also working on an on-call doctor facility through the day as well as a Centralised Health Helpline, which will be integrated with the management system and provide telecounseling, address information requests, address queries and complaints, and follow-ups.

“To ensure an effective reach of healthcare facilities to people, we will also link the call centre facilities to the app launched under the HIMS. This will resolve the issues of people effectively. This system will also ensure the availability of a doctor for the people 24×7,” Jain said.

Officials said that while the system has been in the works for several months now, work was delayed and derailed because of the pandemic.