Railway hospital records to be computerised

Patients' care and management records at the divisional railway hospital here are to be computerised soon. The over 80-year-old hospital will be the second facility after the zonal headquarters railway hospital in Perambur to have Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) in place once the computer systems with local area network connectivity were commissioned.

Under the HIMS, the railway hospital would have 25 computer systems with terminals proposed at out-patients registration block besides for each medical specialist. A cyber control room would be established inside the 198-bedded hospital where a couple of servers would be installed to start with.

Complete data related to both outpatients and in-patients care and management would be entered into the computers to enable immediate information access at the click of the mouse. The hospital, which has experts from different specialities, caters to railway employees and their dependants.

Every patient would be provided with a unique code number under the HIMS and entry of this number in the computer system would enable the medical expert to have complete history of the patient including the drug administered/ prescribed during the last sitting instantly.

The HIMS would also be incorporated with a queue management system whereby the out-patients would not only be informed about the number of patients already waiting to see a medical specialist concerned but also the approximate time at which he / she could meet the doctor on that day.

This would reduce waiting time at the hospital as the outpatient could go back and return at the approximate time informed to him, say railway hospital authorities. The Chief Medical Director, Southern Railway, Chennai, S. Vijayakumar told

The Hindu here that the computerisation works pertaining to patients records would be completed in two months.