NIMS to introduce linkage of patient details with Aadhaar

Hyderabad: Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), the Telangana’s prestigious medical institute soon will have Aadhaar number linkage with the patient details. The citizens visiting the hospital will be provided a Unique Identifier called the CR Number (Central Registration Number). Keeping in view the wide usage of Aadhaar in the State, details of patient are linked with Aadhaar; and it would be helpful for Arogyasri.

According to officials, once the Aadhaar number is entered by the operator at the registration counter, the details of the citizen are filled in the Out-Patient form. Then they get into the Department they want to go. At the OP department, the desk allots the doctor to check the patient, as per their queue and enter the diagnosis and treatment details online. The allotted doctor checks the patient.

The patient then moves to the investigations area (Labs), if the doctor prescribes tests. The Labs are totally computerised to generate a complete health report on the patient, including medical test details. Then the patient has to go to the Pharmacy counter, where the prescribed medicines are disbursed through Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) application. This system enhances the electronic health records management efficiency and also helps in managing the crowd.

Speaking to The Hans India, Dr Kandakatla Manohar, director, says that NIMS has successfully implemented HMIS on Wednesday. “This is the Generation 5 software customised to the needs of institute. The version implemented here involved all categories of fees and exceptions applicable for all categories of citizens visiting the hospital,” he said.

The Director said this system enabled a doctor to refer a patient from one health facility to the other through the system. So, the patient need not carry out any record from the lower level facility since all the medical records are made available to the health facilities, he said.

Dr Manohar further said that very soon a Mobile App would be launched that would facilitate the citizens with mobile based online enquiry, registrations, lab reports download, checking bed availability, special clinic registrations, online bill payment etc. It is proposed to allow citizens to view and download their investigation reports through a two-level authentification process, so that the patient need not visit the health facility at a later stage to collect the reports, he said.

Further, he said a common research facility will come up with all labs at one place that reduces the patient time to visit the labs. ` We are going to introduce pneumatic tube systems so that samples taken can be sent for analysis immediately, without wasting time,’ he said and added patients would get appointments of specialist through online and no need of standing in the lines for hours. He clarified that extra charge would not be collected from the patients.