The e-Health project has helped the State change the way healthcare services are delivered, right from primary health centres till medical college hospitals, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
The queue management system, online appointment booking system, and telemedicine consultation services can effectively reduce crowding at hospitals, making the functioning of hospitals more efficient and patient-friendly, he added.
He was inaugurating the extension of the e-Health project to more hospitals across the State here on Monday.
e-Health, envisaged with the aim of developing an electronic demographic database, electronic health records (EHRs) of a population, and end-to-end automation of all government hospitals to ease hospital processes and healthcare service delivery, is already operational in 300 public sector hospitals.
The project is ready to be extended to 150 more hospitals, of which 50 hospitals went on board on Monday. These include 11 hospitals in Thiruvananthapuram, four each in Kollam, Pathanamthitta, and Kannur, five in Thrissur, and 11 hospitals each in Palakkad and Malappuram.
Mr. Vijayan said of the 1,284 government hospitals in the State, e-Health would be operational in 707 hospitals soon and the remaining would go on the digital platform in phases.
He also inaugurated the setting up of a virtual IT cadre in all districts, by including all resource personnel with IT skills and those interested in involving in the project, to help hospitals get on the digital platform.
This virtual IT cadre would also help the Government in the implementation of various e-governance projects in other departments.
The Chief Minister also inaugurated three innovative “emerging technology projects” for the Health Department, developed by K-DISC, which include an automated retinal image quality assessment and feedback generation project; blood bag traceability and linked blood storage centres; and block chain-based vaccine coverage analysis system.
Health Minister Veena George said e-Health would be the backbone of an ambitious project the Health Department was kicking off to create a population registry of non-communicable diseases in the State.
She recalled the speed with which the COVID death reporting portal was developed by e-Health. The next aim was to make available a health indicators dashboard at the panchayat-level for all medical officers.
