Soon a patient visiting a hospital in the state will not have to carry the case history or lab reports but just enter a unique identification number for the treatment or any consultation.
The State Health Department, in a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, is all set to launch E-Health Kerala for which a fund of Rs 96 crore has been allotted by the Electronics and Information Technology Department under the Union Ministry of Communication.
Health Minister V S Sivakumar told Express that the project would be rolled out soon and the project report is being finalised. “We have already invited tenders for the project. It will have an electronic demographic database and a hospital automation system,” he said.
The Minister said that a central data server would have all the health and demographic data of the population that would be linked to a Health Management Information System.
“It is for the first time in the country that such a project is being implemented.
“Once it is rolled out in the state the details of a patient visiting the hospital can be retrieved easily from the central database by the respective hospital authorities. For example, if a person from Thiruvananthapuram district visits a hospital in Ernakulam all his details can be accessed by the hospital from the central data pool which will make the treatment easy,” he said.
Sivakumar said that in the first phase all Government Medical Colleges, government hospitals and public health centres would be included in the project.