A pilot project to digitise health records of HIV patients receiving anti retroviral therapy (ART) is under way at two government hospitals in the city. The Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS) also plans to come up with a mobile application for patients.
TANSACS rolled out the Electronic Health Record (EHR) project at the ART clinics of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) and Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Egmore, a few months ago. “We are digitising patient health records without compromising on the identity of HIV patients. HIV is a lifelong disease, and we need to monitor the patients’ health for life. The best way to monitor their health records is by digitisation,” said K. Senthil Raj, project director, TANSACS.
Until now, details of patients were entered manually. “EHR is an intra-server facility. If expanded to all ART clinics in the State, patient transfer will be easy, and they can get drugs from any ART clinic. Duplication can be culled out and defaulters can be tracked. At the end of two to three years, a timeline of the patient’s progress can be obtained,” he added.
120 patients a day
The ART clinic at RGGGH receives about 100 to 120 patients a day. Two data managers record patients’ history, duration of ART, modifications in address and phone number on a computer. The patients then move to a community care coordinator who accesses the details on a tablet, said S. Sekar, senior medical officer, RGGGH. “The community care coordinator will enter details of basic measurements such as height and weight. The patient will then meet a counsellor, who will enter the details of the pill count and adherence percentage,” he said.
The medical officer would look into the treatment modalities, opportunistic infection, if any, and modifications needed in drugs prescribed, he said, adding, “We will prescribe the required laboratory tests such as CD4 count once in six months and medications. Both the laboratory technician and pharmacist will get the details from the EHR system,” he explained.
Next, Tansacs is planning to create a dashboard for patients who can login into the website to get details and also fix appointments with ART doctors.
“We are planning to develop a mobile application for patients to keep track of daily calorie, protein and carbohydrate intake and exercise,” he said.