Register for OPD, see queue status, pay via PGI app soon

Tribune News Service

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, November 30

The Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI) will soon have a mobile application under the upcoming hospital information system version 2 (HIS-2) to help broaden the use of patient-centric services by clinicians, paramedical staff, patients, etc.

10,000 OPD registrations being done at PGI daily

2-hour window for registration (8 am to 10 am)

The patient mobile application will have the facility of provisional out-patient department (OPD) registration, special clinic appointment, patient queue status, investigation report view, online payment and mobile payment. Besides, there will be a ‘doctor desk’ mobile application, containing OPD prescription scanning, patient report view, investigation and treatment order and a doctor’s dashboard.

CDAC has submitted agreement for designing new software. Agenda will be tabled in next finance panel meet for approval — Kumar Gaurav Dhawan, Deputy Director, PGI

To save patients the hassle of standing in long queues for getting registered, a digital token system will be introduced. Patients after obtaining the digital token can wait in a designated area and on display of the token number can approach the window for registration.

Conceived for the PGI in June, the HIS-2 is still awaiting final approval from the Standing Finance Committee of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Once approved, the project will take at least nine months for completion, adding to the waiting time in long queues for patients to make OPD registration cards and payments.

The new HIS version, which replaces the 17-year-old version of the hospital information system (HIS-1), will allow easy integration of the Government of India’s digital missions and improve technology-based patient and health services, besides its queue management system.

The HIS-2 will be implemented in four stages, of which patient mobile application and patient queue management will be part of first stage. In the second stage, the mobile application will have advanced features.

Most of the current patient-friendly projects, including SMS facility for laboratory tests, online payment of treatment and online registration for outpatient departments, are dependent upon the system and are facing implementation issues.

Kumar Gaurav Dhawan, Deputy Director, PGI, says: “The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) has submitted the agreement and the agenda will be tabled in the upcoming Standing Finance Committee meeting for final approval.”

In the agenda tabled in June, the PGI had received in-principle approval from the committee, wherein it was proposed the institute will enter into an agreement with CDAC for designing of the new software.

The agency has also decided to include patient queue management (QMS) system to the new software and develop a mobile application for patient services.

Around 8,000 to 10,000 patients are being registered in various OPDs of the institute. Although the nursing staff is offloaded from preparing manual statistics of admission, discharge and deaths on daily basis (250 admissions and 225 discharges), the present HIS system has reached its saturation stage.

The need for an updated software is necessary because mobile application for patients, doctors and staff are required to provide quick and easy access to patient-centric services, which are not available in the current HIS. Besides, the PGI is looking to connect with its satellite centres and sub-centres and have a multi-version HIS.

Services to be offered on mobile

• Provisional OPD registration
• Special clinic appointment
• Patient queue status
• Investigation report view
• Payment via Net banking
• Payment via mobile apps

Part of new hospital info system

• Mobile app is part of hospital information system (HIS-2) version, which replaces older HIS-1, allowing integration of Centre’s digital missions, improving tech-based services
• HIS-2 is awaiting final nod of the Standing Finance Committee. Once approved, the project will take nine months for completion
• Most services such as SMS for lab test, online payment, registration for OPD under HIS-1 are facing hiccups, hence need for new system

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