1 Discuss The Organizational Arrangements For The HMIS in India
1 Discuss The Organizational Arrangements For The HMIS in India
1 Discuss The Organizational Arrangements For The HMIS in India
Central level
At the central level there are four major agencies dealing with the HMIS.
1.
Example: information relating to patient treated in the OPD, Age and service
classification, investigations laboratory, radiological and others, diagnostic
classification of cases, patient treated in the emergency service, patient treated as
inpatients, service wide classification of disease and operation, investigationlaboratory, radiological and others, deliveries, deaths (mortality), infections cases
and so on
Introduction to E-health
E-health is the utilisation of emerging interactive technologies to facilitate health
improvement and health care services. The technologies include Compact Disc Read
Only Memory (CD-ROM), Digital Video Disc Read Only Memory (DVD-ROM),
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), Internet, interactive television, kiosks and so on.
E-health uses the growing technology to upgrade the quality, safety and efficiency
of healthcare. While adopting E-health a consumer must keep three things in mind:
personal health record, electronic health record and ensure safe sharing of these
records between the doctors and patients.
E-health provides many advantages in the field of healthcare services. They are:
Significant information from your health history is readily available to your
doctor, without having to spend time looking through a paper chart and possibly
missing something important.
Your doctor can receive important awareness based on your specific history,
such as whether a new medication will have side effects, or if you require other
medications.
The health record will be transferred on time if you choose a different clinic
site other than the clinic which you normally visit.
The healthcare solutions provided by e-health are low cost.
Patients who are bedridden or disabled can have access to healthcare
services through e-health.
Patients are comfortable talking about the healthcare issues to their friends
and relatives. This is not the case with mental health issues. Patients are
comfortable discussing the mental health concerns through E-health.
Clinics are able to electronically and securely send your relevant health
information to another doctor you have to consult. This saves you from having to
unnecessarily repeated tests and procedures and implies you do not have to fill out
health history forms everywhere you go.
Challenges in E-health
E-health is a rapidly growing technology. However, it faces certain challenges as the
population is widespread. Most of the population in India is spread across villages
and hilly terrains. Delivering E-health services to these areas could prove a
challenge. Let us look into some of the challenges faced by E-health in India.
India is highly populated country spread over a wide area. There are 600,000
villages in India and about 27,000 villages have no road or rail facilities, 51,000
villages are deprived of power connections. Few villages are yet to get a
simple analogue telephone. Telecom facilities do not exist. At this rate, providing Ehealth would definitely prove a challenging task.
Nowadays, highly advanced communication systems are available. To utilise these
resources, a minimum level of education is expected. India has a large population
of over one billion out of which approximately 400 million are illiterates. In rural
areas the literacy rate is very less. Providing access to E-health to illiterates is a
challenging task.
The number of healthcare centres across our country is not satisfactory. As per
census done in the year 2001, we require another 21,983 Sub-centres, 4436 PHCs
and 3332 CHCs approximately to provide better healthcare facilities across villages
and other states. Only about a quarter of the population in villages have access to
healthcare services.
Approximately 40% of the rural population sell their assets to meet their medical
expenses. There are about 15 official languages in India. The culture differs from
state-to-state in our country. It is a challenge to impart knowledge to the people in
such cases. The developer of E-health modules must keep in mind the difference in
culture while developing the modules.