Bed management system: ‘Emulate Kerala dashboard’

Three-member committee submits its report to BBMP chief

May 08, 2021 09:42 am | Updated 09:42 am IST

The three-member committee, which was formed to make the Central Hospital Bed Management System (CHBMS) transparent and plug loopholes, has recommended that the portal be developed on the lines of the dashboard of the government of Kerala. The committee submitted its report to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta on Friday.

According to highly placed sources, the committee recommended an overhaul of access control, a security audit, generation of daily reports and analytics, and improvements to the existing portal.

Kerala’s dashboard is data driven and provides daily reports, details on active cases, vaccinations, hotspots and community kitchens. “Many features from Kerala’s dashboard can be incorporated. Right now, CHBMS is just reflecting availability of beds under government quota in various healthcare facilities. It may require some work to develop new interfaces,” said a source.

The committee submitted its report two days after Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, along with MLAs Ravi Subramanya, Uday Garudachar and Satish Reddy, alleged bed-blocking by staff of the South zone war room.

Secure access

Sources told The Hindu that the committee’s recommendation on stricter norms for access control have already been implemented. It has recommended that the computers used in zonal war rooms be white-listed to ensure that only they are used for bed allotment. Every user in the war room will have his or her own ID and must login with a password and OTP. This, sources said, will improve accountability and security in the system.

As soon as a bed is allotted, either the patient or attendant should get an SMS. Currently, the SMS is sent when an ambulance is booked and not when the bed is blocked.

Reduce auto-unblock time

The committee has recommended reduction in auto-unblock time from 10 hours to 6 hours, which is the time until which the bed will remain booked. Explaining this, sources said that the 10-hour duration was too long and miscreants could try to misuse the system during this period.

The committee has recommended an overall security audit of the software through an authorised agency to ensure that both the software and data are secure.

Some major issues had already been flagged prior to the MP and his BJP colleagues storming the South zone war room, said Mr. Gupta. “While we didn’t have specific cases, there was a feeling that the system was being misused. Hence, the committee had been constituted,” he said.

While work on improving the CHBMS has already begun, it has been affected by the ongoing investigation, sources said. “For the past few days, software engineers are being summoned by the police as part of the investigation. This has resulted in work getting hampered. We have requested the police to allow the software developers to work,” a source said.

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