Hyderabad: Health survey inches to finish line

Hyderabad: The health survey taken up by the State government to collect the health information of every individual is inching towards completion. The information so far gathered by the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers, who took door-to door visit of households to collect information about the health status of citizens, would be uploaded on to an app soon.

To minimise the burden of multiple visits and compilation of manually collected information, the State government has launched an application-based questionnaire, ASHA disease profile application, that can capture the information about the risk factors and symptoms of various communicable and non-communicable diseases from all the individuals of the State. District Medical and Health Officer (DM&HO) Venkati Jummidi told The Hans India that the survey had entered its final stage and likely to be completed by next week in Hyderabad.

The DM&HO further said that as most of the districts as well as villages data on health has been collected, the Health department is going to run a digital health programme on a pilot basis in Gopanpally and also in Siddipet. "While 70 per cent of families in the State are registered in the application, another 30 per cent are still remaining. The government will also launch the digital health patient-based programme, where a doctor treating a patient can get easy access to the medical history of that particular patient," added Venkati.

Meanwhile, with the increase in Covid-19 cases and the threat of other variants, the data collection process has been accelerated.

The information in the app includes the name and address of all the family members, and the information related to diseases like tuberculosis, cancer, blood pressure, diabetes, etc. are also included in the app. It also records the details of who has chronic, short-term diseases, infectious and non-infectious diseases in the family besides the details of smokers and alcoholics.

Speaking to The Hans India, Rani Laxmi, an ASHA worker said, "We will complete the data collection soon. Earlier we use to enter the details by manually collecting it and writing down on paper, but with the digitisation, it has become easy for us to upload the details."

Another ASHA worker, Mallishwari said, "If anyone in the family has hypertension or diabetes, they can take medicines free of cost at the health centres and Basti Dawakhanas. Moreover, people with chronic diseases can also get treatment for free."