State favours own e-health platform over Centre’s

KOZHIKODE: A cold war is on between Kerala and the Union Government over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship e-Hospital platform under the Digital India Initiative, with the state giving impetus to its own e-Health facility offering online services to patients.

Though state officers couldn’t give the exact reason for not embracing the Union Government’s Online Registration System (ORS) under e-Hospital, they confirmed the state was giving more prominence to its own state-of-the-art e-Health facility. Only two hospitals from Kerala - Malabar Cancer Centre in Thalassery and Vaidyaratnam P S Varier Ayurveda College Hospital in Kottakkal - have so far enrolled in the ORS.

The ORS will link various hospitals across the country to facilitate online appointments for patients with any hospital by authenticating either through Aadhaar or mobile number. The portal facilitates online appointments with various departments of different hospitals using eKYC data of Aadhaar number if the patient’s mobile number is registered with UIDAI. 

Apart from online registration system, the e-Hospital platform also enables hospitals to provide various online services to the patients such as online OPD appointment, viewing of lab reports and status of availability of blood in blood banks. The online system was developed to introduce appointment system at government hospitals and prevent long queues causing inconvenience to patients at registration counters.

State Health Secretary Rajeev Sadanandan said the state’s e-Health facility will provide all the facilities offered in e-Hospital. “Our system is almost ready and will be launched soon by the Chief Minister. We had to postpone the launch to fix certain security glitches to prevent hacking and virus penetration. Initially, the online facility will cover medical colleges, general hospitals and district hospitals in the state,” he said.

Dr Jayadevan C V of Vaidyaratnam P S Varier Ayurveda College Hospital said they were yet to get appointments through the ORS. As per the ORS website update, 81 hospitals across the country have enrolled in the system with 7.9 lakh online appointments being made on it so far.

Prioritising personal initiative
Officers confirmed the state was giving more prominence to its own state-of-the-art e-Health facility
Only two hospitals from Kerala - Malabar Cancer Centre in Thalassery and Vaidyaratnam P S Varier Ayurveda College Hospital in Kottakkal - have so far enrolled in the Centre’s Online Registration System
The online system was developed to introduce appointment system at government hospitals and prevent long queues causing inconvenience to patients at registration counters
The state govt’s online facility will initially cover MCs, general hospitals and district hospitals