In a bid to assess the delivery of health services, and study disease patterns and demographic profiles of patients, the mohalla clinics to be set up in Madhya Pradesh will be the country’s first health centres to be entirely paperless. Registration, consultation, diagnosis recording and drug prescription — all will be done free through a mobile application on tablets. And medical records can be retrieved online.
“Artificial intelligence will help analyse patient health records on multiple metrics such as symptoms, diagnosis, consultations and administration of medicines and help define health-seeking behaviours. SMS and WhatsApp alerts will be sent to patients to remind them of follow-up consultation date,” said Pankaj Shukla, Joint Director, National Urban Health Mission.
Generic medicines
Three systems will be fed into the application for registration, consultation and drug distribution. “Since the app will have an inventory of generic medicines available from the 120 mandated types at the clinic, the doctor can choose which ones to prescribe,” reads the proposal for the ‘Sanjeevani’ clinics.
“Unlike the New Delhi mohalla clinics — which focus only on the curative aspect of health care — we will also incorporate the preventive aspect,” said Mr. Shukla. Neonatal, family planning and contraceptive services and prevention of non-communicable diseases will be delivered by volunteers, each responsible for 200 households.
Besides medical officers, one at every clinic, each field volunteer will carry tablets to monitor pregnant women, mothers and newborns, record the incidence of non-communicable diseases and conduct awareness programmes as part of preventive care.
For the maintenance of the software, developed by LEHS Wish Foundation, ₹4,000 per month had been set aside. “It will help establish the existing community-based health need gaps and measure the impact of the intervention,” explained Mr. Shukla.
In the first week of December, around 30 such clinics will be opened across seven cities of the State including Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur.
Each clinic will cater to a target base of 50,000 persons and be run on the model prescribed by the National Health Mission to provide “comprehensive primary healthcare”.
While there are 216 urban primary health centres and civil dispensaries in the State, 208 ‘Sanjeevani’ clinics will be set up to fill the gap in healthcare delivery. In the first phase, 88 clinics will be set up in buildings provided by the Urban Development Department until March.
