Eight months after its launch, digital healthcare management system at JJ Hospital hits a block | Mumbai News
JJ Hospital, the largest government-run medical college and hospital (GMCH) in Maharashtra, is struggling to maintain its digital Healthcare Management Information System (HMIS) just eight months after its launch. The HMIS was designed to digitise patient medical records and enhance hospital efficiency by reducing paperwork and streamlining patient record management.
The HMIS aims to improve record-keeping, minimize human errors, and decrease patient wait times across the state. In November, the system was implemented at the hospital with a vendor installing computers and data operators to manage patient records. However, a dispute with the contractor led to the system becoming non-functional shortly after its initiation.
The state government assured that a new vendor would be appointed to resolve the issue, but this has not happened yet, forcing the hospital to revert to manual record-keeping and physical patient case papers.
All government medical colleges and hospitals are required to implement the HMIS. Last November, a trial run of the system began in six medical colleges and hospitals in Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Dhule, Kolhapur, and the JJ Group of Hospitals.
A senior official from the Medical Education Department, who requested anonymity, stated that they are awaiting government approval to proceed with setting up the LAN. Until this approval is granted, progress remains stalled. “We hope to roll out the HMIS state-wide by the beginning of August,” said Rajiv Nivatkar, Commissioner of Medical Education.
Currently, patients visiting the hospital must collect documents from the OPD, where doctors discuss health issues and record prescriptions on paper. Without the HMIS, patient registration takes 10 to 12 minutes, and the loss of case papers results in a time-consuming manual process. In contrast, the HMIS system allows for online patient registration, assigns a unique identity number to each patient, and streamlines treatment by providing quick access to comprehensive patient details, including blood reports, X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans.
In July, the state government allocated Rs 269.5 crore for implementing the HMIS in hospitals. This task has been reassigned to the National Informatics Centre (NIC), a government unit, rather than a private company.
The BMC-operated GMCH has reaped significant benefits from the system. Since its introduction in 2018 at BYL Nair
Hospital, six additional hospitals and five dispensaries have adopted the system, digitizing approximately 69 lakh patient records by the end of July.
A recent TISS study revealed that manual record-keeping at Sion and KEM hospitals leads to prolonged waiting times, surgery cancellations, and inaccuracies in laboratory results due to illegible handwritten sample markings by lab technicians.
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