CHANDIGARH: From 2012, patients in city won't have to carry their medical records with them from one government hospital to the next if they are being treated there. Information technology wing of the UT administration has started working on creating a Hospital Management Information System (HMIS), where all the records of government hospitals and dispensaries will be linked through a central database.
In this system, if a patient goes to any dispensary and gets treatment, he or she will be registered there and when the patient is shifted from there to a bigger hospital, doctors there will be able to access details of the previous diagnosis also.
''In the first phase of this project, IT wing has started building the internal network of Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32. After that, work for networking will be started in Sector-16 based Government Multispeciality Hospital. In the second phase, we will cover Manimajra Civil Hospital, Sector-22 dispensary and polyclinic in Sector 45,'' said a senior officer of IT wing, who is associated with the work.
''Also, in this, interconnecting system details of all the medical tests will be available at all hospitals and dispensaries,'' he added.
UT's director (IT) said Yogesh Kumar, said, ''This system will make information sharing very smooth for patients and doctors, so they get all the useful data at one go. It will include all relevant data from the day a patient is registered with the city's medical facilities. Doctors would also know about which medical professionals handled the patients before them. They would also be able to consult them. The project will take at least one year to finish.''
Sources in IT wing of UT administration said they were taking help of private experts in this exercise of networking and interconnection. ''We will soon allot tenders for some more works to private players. Of course our experts will keenly monitor the work,'' an official revealed. Sources said thousands of patients visited government dispensaries and hospitals daily.
As reported in: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/IT-to-connect-govt-hospitals/articleshow/9180728.cms