NEW DELHI: Days after launching a QR-based scan-and-share registration service for patients visiting its Out Patient Department (OPD), the Centre-run Safdarjung Hospital has mooted plan to phase out manual patient registration.
Dr B L Sherwal, Medical Superintendent, Safdarjung, said the hospital will soon take a decision to stop the manual patient registration system. “After a month, I believe, we will be able to do away with the paper registration of patients in our OPD,” he told this newspaper.
The hospital introduced the scan-and-share facility integrated with Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) on Tuesday. Currently, registration through ABHA is under way, along with the paper registration system. “Though we ask patients to use the scan-and-share option, many still insist on paperwork, so we are doing it simultaneously. However, it will be done away with,” Sherwal said.
The idea behind installing the QR based system was to decongest the OPD rush. Sherwal said the new system is easing out the long queues before registration counters since the scan-and-share system is faster than paperwork.
“For a facility that sees more than 10,000 patients daily, this system is a must,” he added. After AIIMS Delhi, Safdarjung is the second government hospital to come up with an ABHA ID scanning system. The purpose of this step is to decongest the OPD rush.
Meanwhile, Sherwal also informed us that Safdarjung will use a digital system in all areas of patient care by March. “We have already started using the e-hospital manual in OPD and in wards. The full manual will be implemented by March,” he said.
According to the service manual, patients can use the scan-and-share service by scanning the hospital’s unique QR code through their mobile phone’s camera, scanner, ABHA App, Arogya Setu App, or any other ABDM enabled application and share their profile details with the hospital.