e-health record of 1.3 bn: soon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 19

The government is working towards creating an electronic health record of 1.3 billion Indians by enhancing investment in digital technologies, Health Minister JP Nadda said.

He was today addressing the Global Digital Health Partnership Summit at Canberra in Australia.

Speaking on the topic, “Making digital health services a priority in healthcare reform”, Nadda said India’s National Health Portal was streaming crucial information to households.

“The web users for the National Health Portal are over 2.6 million and over 2.2 million calls were made by citizens to date. Content of the portal is available in six Indian languages and we plan to make it available in six more,” Nadda said.

He said Hospital Information System was being implemented for automation of hospital processes to achieve better efficiency and service delivery in public health facilities up to the community health centre-level.

“We have a system called e-Hospital developed by our National Informatics Centre. It’s currently working in more than 173 hospitals. Online Registration System (ORS) is being used for scheduling online appointments in public sector tertiary care hospitals. Around 139 hospitals are using ORS application.”

“Patient engagement is being sought to improve service delivery through ‘My Hospital’ system which collects feedback on services being rendered in public hospitals. The application is available in seven languages and currently more than 1,067 hospitals in 23 states are using it. Over 1.3 million feedbacks have been received out of which 76 per cent said they are satisfied with the service,” the Health Minister said.