Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday, November 10, directed the health officials to implement a cloud-based Health Information Management System (HIMS) and ensure e-health card across the state government hospitals.

Both the initiatives have been in the planning stage for a considerable time, the health card was going to be announced in early 2018.

The e-health card and the HIMS will work hand in hand. While the health card is being designed as a QR code-based card to collect clinical details of all the patients in one place, the HIMS will store a database of clinical information of those registered.

Kejriwal discussed the progress of the project in a meeting with Health Minister Satyendra Jain and other officials of the department. A presentation was conducted by the officials regarding the implementation.

The Delhi government stated: ‘The Health Information Management System will be implemented by August 2021 in all Delhi government hospitals. The system seeks to target the healthcare delivery process. All the patient care services, hospital administration, budgeting and planning, supply chain management, and backend services and processes will be brought under the system. As far as the deployment model is concerned, the entire system will be on the cloud and digitised. This will enable citizens to avail information on one platform, which will help them in emergency cases.’

It also added that this new scheme will be available only to the government hospitals in its initial stages and after some time it will be extended to private hospitals as well.

Talking about its benefits the officials said that this card will also ensure that the Delhi residents are mapped for all eligible schemes and programs.

Speaking on the same matter Kejriwal issued a statement: ‘This management system should be able to provide all healthcare facilities to the people. Other than that, by 2021, every resident of Delhi visiting a hospital should be issued a card to avail of the benefits of the government healthcare services. After issuing cards, we have to ensure that it is integrated with HIMS.’

Speaking on an on-call doctor facility through the day and a Centralised Health Helpline, which will be combined with the management system and provide Tele counselling, address information requests, address queries and complaints and follow-ups, Satyendra Jain said, ‘To ensure an effective reach of healthcare facilities to people, we will also link the call centre facilities to the app launched under the HIMS. This will resolve the issues of people effectively. This system will also ensure the availability of a doctor for the people 24×7.’

The officials said that the work for the new initiative was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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