By IANS,
New Delhi : Government hospitals in Delhi will soon be getting electronic medical records (EMR) where information of every patient will be digitized and available in the hospital records, health ministry officials said here Friday.
“Private hospitals are advanced when it comes to keeping electronic medical records of patient. But public hospitals have a huge patient burden and EMR is important. We are first aiming at Safdarjung, Ram Manohar Lohia and Lady Hardinge hospitals,” Pradeep Saxena, director of the central bureau of health intelligence (CBHI), said at the inauguration of 12th annual national conference on medical records.
The EMR system helps in sharing a patient’s medical history information among hospitals at the district, state or national level. The two-day conference, organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre and Health Records Association of India, focuses on new technologies for a digital database in country’s hospitals.
“We are also focusing on training physicians and medical staff on how to record proper cause of death. Doctors from Delhi government hospitals are also being given this training,” Saxena added.
While EMR would help premier hospitals such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) create a patient database, the government also plans to make use of EMR in mapping disease policy.
Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre maintains EMR under its medical records department for the national cancer registry.
“Diseases such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and neurological disorders that fall under non-communicable diseases have already been included at the policy level. If we have accurate statistics for these diseases, our policies will become sharper,” said Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services, ministry of health.