The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to issue health cards to all patients in civic hospitals.
The cards will have barcodes with information of the patient’s personal details, health history and real-time health records. Sample containers will bear barcode stickers that will link them to the particular patient’s records.
“Earlier, a patient would have to physically carry X-Ray reports from the X-Ray department to the doctor. Soon, doctors should be able to access all patient information on their dashboard,” a health department official explained. Doctors will also have real-time information on the availability of drugs, which will help them when prescribing medications. The card will not have a photograph of the patient, but the barcode will be linked to Aadhaar details.
Pilot project
Patients will not have to create case papers at hospitals. “The cards are being issued as a pilot project across our health centres. The implementation of this project across the city will depend on the feedback we get in the next three months,” said Dr. Padmaja Keskar, executive health officer.
The cards will be provided as part of the BMC’s project to set up an online hospital management information system (HMIS) across its network of hospitals. In the first phase of this project, the BMC intends to connect five hospitals — Dr. B.Y L. Nair Hospital, Rajawadi Hospital, Dr. R.N. Cooper Hospital, Dr. B. Ambedkar Hospital and Kasturba Hospital. On Wednesday, the civic standing committee sanctioned ₹58.33 crore to install internet infrastructure, provide technical manpower and to provide maintenance support for five years at these hospitals.
