NEW DELHI: In a bid to become a cashless institution, the AIIMS is gearing up to launch its own smart card facility that will replace all cash-bound transactions at all billing counters of the hospital including cafeterias, officials said.
The new service is expected to roll by April next year and would be an add-on facility of payment to the existing electronic modes of transactions like credit/debit cards and UPI etc, they informed.
Once implemented, all transactions happening in the patient care area for clinical service which includes registration for OPD, payment for surgeries, treatment and diagnostic tests can be done through the “AIIMS smart card,” according to the officials. Besides, post implementation of the smart card service, no billing counters in the hospital will accept cash except the top-up counters that will be set up for its recharge and would be operationalised 24x7, they added.
The finance division of the institute will collaborate with the State Bank of India to introduce the smart card in the hospital, according to a direction issued by the institute’s director. Officials said that providing change against cash given by patients and their attendants for payment against various procedures is a major challenge at many counters of the hospital which often led to long queues and delays. “The new facility will cut the delay and hassle for both patients and service providers,” a senior official said.
QR Code to replace manual registration
Meanwhile, from Monday onwards, patients coming to the new RAK OPD will not need to manually register themselves for the consultation. The apex institute has decided to adopt the scan & share QR Code solution of the National Health Authority (NHA) at the OPD to cut long queues and waiting times at its registration counters.
The new facility, which will start as a pilot at the new RAK on November 21, will be implemented at all OPDs of the institute from January 1. The move is taken after noting a delay in OPD registration through ABHA ID the institute rolled out a few weeks ago, in which, OTP is used for authentication. However, in many cases, OTP is often delayed which led to further delay in the whole registration process, officials said.