The benefit of various tools of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are being extensively used in the Health Sector both by the Government and Private Health care Service providing agencies. According to the Constitution of India, Health Sector is a joint responsibility of States and the Union Government. The Health sector off-late has been undertaken as a Mission Mode Project (MMP) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of Department of Information Technology in which process reengineering and change management are the priorities to derive the benefits of ICT.

ICT plays pivotal role in Health Care, as it has the potential to bridge the distances by providing access to clinical knowledge, specialised expertise and other services unavailable in rural areas. In addition, centralised data repositories connected through ICT networks, enables remote healthcare professionals to keep abreast with the rapidly evolving frontiers of clinical knowledge. Health workers in our country are getting relevant medical training through ICT-enabled delivery mechanisms. ICT is acting as a facilitator for improving the efficiency in disease prevention and epidemic response efforts and also enhancing the administrative capabilities to strengthen public health care delivery system.

Ministry of Health & FW, Government of India

Health Informatics Division of National Informatics Centre (NIC) provides I.T. support to Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine (AYUSH) for e-moding their day-to-day workings. More than 700 PCs of the Ministry are connected to the Local Area Network (LAN), which in turn, are connected to NICNET through RF Link and leased line circuits. Over 650 and 78 LAN nodes have been provided at Nirman Bhawan and IRCS Building, Dept. of AYUSH respectively.

Projects handled by NIC are as follows:

Integrated Diseases Surveillance Project (IDSP): IDSP has been established to improve the efficiency of diseases surveillance in health planning, management and evaluating control strategies. IDSP has been successfully implemented at all the District Surveillance Units (DSU), State Surveillance Units (SSU) and Medical colleges/ State Health Institutes as Urban Surveillance Unit in most of the states. NIC/NICSI has undertaken it as a turnkey project to build ICT infrastructure for establishing disease surveillance at District, State and National level at about 800 sites all over India. The implementation of this project includes establishing ICT infrastructure for training and data uploading, connectivity (Broadband and VSAT), application software for data updation and analysis, Hand holding support for manpower, VC at state headquarters and Call Centre services for actual setting up of information gathering on disease an occurance of outbreaks. Weekly data are being transmitted electronically from DSUs in prescribed format and daily reports to Central Surveillance Unit (CSU), New Delhi.

Computerisation of Central Govt. Health Scheme (CGHS): CGHS is high on the agenda of the Government with the ultimate objective to provide effective, timely and hassle-free healthcare to the CGHS beneficiary. The system is aimed at revamping total operations by computerising all functions of the dispensary such as Registration, Doctors' prescription, Pharmacy Counter, Stores, Laboratory & Indent. The pilot project was completed successfully at the Laxmi Nagar CGHS Dispensary, New Delhi in Dec 2005. All CGHS dispensaries in Delhi and most of NCR region were later computerised by March 2008. NIC/NICSI has also been entrusted with the responsibility of computerising all the dispensaries outside Delhi/NCR for their operations including medical stores and administrative office in six cities of Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune to connect with the Central Portal at Delhi. Through this information highway via web-enabled application, it is attempted to usher in overall efficiency at operational level for delivery of healthcare services to CGHS beneficiaries.

Intra-Health Portal for the Ministry & Website: NIC had lauched intra-Health portal for e-moding the functions of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The scope of portal services include documents sharing, facilitating user profile, File Movement System, Project Monitoring System etc. NIC also developed and hosted the Ministry's official Website http://mohfw.nic.in and various other websites under the ministry. Critical information on topics like SARS, Bird Flu, Chikungunya, notifications of the CGHS, procurement of Tenders etc. are regularly updated on the web site.

The other areas covered by the Health Informatics Division are:

  • Creation of Homepages of Population Research Centres (PRCs).
  • Personnel Information System for the Central Health Services Doctors.
  • Gran-In-Aid and Utilisation Certificates (UC) monitoring system.
  • Clinical Trial Registry of India (CTRI) site for hosting on NIC server.
  • Website of the NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation).
  • Computerisation of Dept. of AYUSH.
  • Computerisation at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
  • Counselling multi-city V.C. based of candidates for admission to the Undergraduate and Post Graduate Medical admission Counselling in Delhi.
  • Video Conferencing sessions at Nirman Bhawan with various states/districts on Health & Family Welfare related issues.
  • Development of OncoNET India: a computer network of 125 Cancer Centers for facilitating tele-consultations.
  • Government Health Facility Mapping Project.

State Centres

Health Informatics undertaken by NIC State centres are:

— Tripura

A Hospital Management System has been implemented at Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) and GBP Teaching Hospital, which keeps records and reports of all the patients. A workflow-based Application Software Suit for Hospitals from NIC, called e-Hospital@NIC, deals with complete treatment cycle of OPD/IPD patients, integrates various functions like clinical, administrative, finance etc.

By automating these complex clinical support processes the hospital staffs are able to devote more time and services to the patients. It also facilitates prompt and quick policy decisions for the hospital administration based on MIS Reports generated from the system.

Mr. SK Roy, IAS, Commissioner and Secretary, Govt. of Tripura said “Health Services & Family Welfare Department, Govt. of Tripura strives to provide quality patient care. We could achieve significant operational efficiency by integrating patient management, administrative operations, and clinical processes into one efficient manageable system using e-Hospital@NIC solution from NIC at Agartala Govt. Medical College & GBP Teaching Hospital”

The key features of e-Hospital@NIC are to provide an integrated solution for hospital/ clinic needs, keeping patient records, Ward-Cabin-ICU management, patient treatment, management and disposition, investigations, laboratory services, reports etc. A perfect patient-centric system!

e-Hospital@NIC helps in improving better arrangement of hospital functions. The streamlining a various operations, enhancing administrative control, improving response to patient care, reducing patient's waiting time by smooth flow of information and provides house keeping of medical records such as patient's history, diagnostic details etc. It generates various MIS and statistical reports which gives information on common diseases prevalent in the catchments areas of the hospital, hospital statistics in terms of inpatients, outpatients, diagnostic services and so on.

e-Hospital@NIC is also running successfully in Shillong at Ganesh Das Memorial Hospital and is being customised for ESI Hospital, New Delhi and other hospitals across the country.

Excerpts of a letter from Dr. B.K Gairola, DG, NIC

“One of the top most areas of concern to the common man is health care services. The load on Government hospitals is increasing day-by-day along with population increase and pro-people policies of Union and State Government on Healthcare sector. Mainly down trodden masses are being served by Govt. hospitals in rural and urban areas. A core group is working in NIC for providing one stop ICT solution for Health Sector embracing healthcare and e-Gov standards. e-Hospital@NIC is designed and developed to help small to large size Government hospitals to deploy ICT solution at a very affordable cost”

— West Bengal

ICT Infrastructure: Department of Health and Family Welfare (DHFW), Government of West Bengal has built functionally vibrant ICT-Infrastructure connecting upto the block level.

Department's headquarter: Swasthya Bhavan is well connected with LAN throughout the building and hosts State Level Computer Centers (SCC). DHFW also has a well-developed Health Intranet connecting the SCC with 37 major Nodes including DCC (District Computer Center at each District Hospitals) and Medical colleges Hospitals, with dedicated lease lines from BSNL and West Bengal State Wide Area Network. All the 341 Block Primary Health Centres (BPHCs) are computerised and well-equipped with two computers, printers and two data-entry operators.

Hospital Management Information System (HMIS): An ERP level web-based Application has been implemented at all 92 major hospitals including Medical colleges, Specialty Hospitals, District Hospitals, Sub-Divisional & State General Hospitals. All the workflow of OPD, IPD including Blood Bank are captured into the system. All the nineteen District Reserve Stores and Central Medical Store (CMS) has also been computerised.

Website: The Official Website of DHFW (www.wbhealth.gov.in) is a vast pool of information for citizens related to Medical colleges, Hospitals, Blood Banks and other health related institutions. The website is also used for reporting and information exchange during normal as well as epidemic situation.

Telemedicine Project: has also been implemented in sixteen health institutions in West Bengal which facilitates access to a broad range of comprehensive primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare services especially for patients in remote and rural areas. Telemedicine project extends services like diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease etc.

e-Referral: is being implemented to facilitate the treatment of patients at PHC/ BPHC level with help of expert doctors at higher level such as Sub-divisional/District/Medical College Hospitals. A detailed treatment protocol for various diseases at different levels of the health delivery network is being developed taking into consideration the available infrastructure at the respective units.

— Rajasthan

HEALING (Health Information System for Government) is an integrated health information system for Medical Health & Family Welfare Department; Govt. of Rajasthan which has been deployed on high end servers connected with a high speed internet backbone. Implemented in 2005, the system facilitates effective and efficient delivery of health services.

Swasthya Bhavan has over two hundred nodes connected over a LAN supported with technical professionals from NIC. Users of different sections can easily access their applications online from their respective locations. All the field level offices including CMHOs, Dy CMHOs and RCHOs are equipped with computer resources connected through dial-up/broadband connectivity. This system is robust, sustainable and its architecture is web-based which can be centrally administered. Some of the application areas covered by HEALING are Disease Surveillance, Public Grievances Redressal, Malaria Monitoring, Pulse Polio Campaign Monitoring, Drug Control, Swasthya Chetna Campaign Monitoring etc.

— Gujarat NIC Gujarat has introduced ICT for effective and efficient management of various activities of the Health Department, Govt. of Gujarat especially in the following areas.

Reproductive Child Health (RCH): The programme integrates services related to health of women and children for ensuring effective Maternal & Child health care. A web-based Intra-Health is developed to help in data collection, verification and dissemination. Data collected from various level like village/block/district are used for analysis and report generation as Decision Support System for formulating the policy and strategies.

Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP): ICT based application for IDSP was introduced in Gujarat before it was taken up at National level. It is a web-based application and is used for collecting data from various units of Health Department on specified disease. This helps in taking decision on deployment of resources and to formulate strategies for better monitoring and supervision.

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS): The web-based application is useful for monitoring the child (0-6 years) health and nutrition. Data are collected through Anganwadi Workers on monthly basis and reports/statistics are generated for taking decision on administrative and strategic issues.

Central Medical Stores Organisation (CMSO): A solution similar to ERP is provided to CMSO, Gandhinagar, the nodal agency and at 418 different locations all over Gujarat, under the Commissionerate of Health for supervising and monitoring functions like fixing of rate contract for related drugs under the 3 indents, assessment of drug requirement at various PHCs, CHCs and DHO etc.

— Andhra Pradesh.

Healthmaps, Communicable Disease Mapping: is a low cost Web-GIS based solution that helps in communicable disease mapping and investigation of spatial pattern of health events and disease outbreak which helps in monitoring and controlling the spread of deadly disease.

Vaccination Scheduling System: The system provides for scheduling vaccinations to the citizens visiting foreign countries. The international travellers can also book their appointments for vaccination as per the WHOs norms on 24X7 basis.

e-Hospital: Module-based ICT solution has been developed for enhancing the efficiency, productivity and effectiveness in all the functional areas of hospitals for the benefit of doctors, para-medical staff, nursing staff and hospital administrators besides the patients. The application conforms to WHOs ICD 10 standards and is implemented at Fever Hospital, Institute of Preventive Medicine, Anantapur Hospital, RIMS, KG Hospital, Chittoor Hospital in Andhra Pradesh.

Online Drug Indenting and Drug Stock Monitoring System: An online and SMS based drug stock monitoring and drug inventory system has been developed for the APHMHIDC. Pharmacists of nearly two thousand Government Health Institutes have been trained to implement this system. ICT based applications are also being used in Drug inventory, Central Government Health Services (CGHS), Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) etc.

— Jharkhand For monitoring Mother & Child care Program of the Department of Health, Govt. of Jharkhand, NIC developed “Mamta Software”. The software individually tracks both mother and her child related care. It monitors antenatal care as well as nutritional parameters of pregnant women to achieve reduction in mother's mortality rate. Anganwadi-wise list can be generated for monitoring immunization targets among children.

A “Hospital Information & Management System” has been developed and implemented at Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Applied Sciences, (RINPAS) Department of Health, Government of Jharkhand. The software has various functional modules with respect to Master Entry, Accounts, Patients Registration, Doctor's Duty/Record Room, Admission, Enquiry, Reports, Correspondences, Inventory, Discharge .etc.

— Karnataka

NIC, in association with Government of Karnataka has been working extensively to extend the ICT support to Health & Family Welfare Department and many other centrally sponsored projects such as IDSP, CGHS and NRHM.

A website http://karhfw.gov.in has been developed, projecting various schemes under operation, government orders, notifications, health policy etc. HMIS is a web-based application which captures the details of outpatients, inpatients, emergency patients and deaths statistics etc. A patient-centric website http://nimhans.kar.nic.in has been designed and hosted by NIC, Bangalore under which e-mail ids are provided to all the staffs directly associated with NIMHANS. Due to induction of ICT in health sector there has been a major paradigm shift in India's health programmes. The use of ICT and its applications in improving and enhancing the delivery and quality of health services, is gaining significant attention day by day. The use of ICT in health sector can be an example of how significant and positive changes, ICT can bring in every sphere of life.