The Hindu : New Delhi News : Six Delhi hospitals adopt medical surveillance system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 02, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Six Delhi hospitals adopt medical surveillance system

By Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI, FEB. 1 . Call it the tsunami aftermath or simply being prudent. With the Capital leading the way for the country in matching international medical surveillance and data collection systems across the globe, Delhiites will probably never again be caught off-guard with an epidemic, infections disease outbreak or even nasty infections.

India wasn't previously a party to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) system introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after World War II, enabling easy data collection/analysis and allowing early warning of the outbreak of an epidemic in the general population.

And leading the country in the latest endeavour is Delhi, which has facilitated the trial run for the ICD-10 system. While talks are on to replicate the same in various Central Government and private establishments, the week-long trial run before the system is finally put in place is currently on at Delhi's six hospital -- Dr Hedgewar Arogya Sansthan, Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital, Moti Nagar Hospital, Patel Nagar Hospital, Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital and Shastri Park Hospital.

The commissioned pilot project, done by outsourcing on `Built Own Operate' system, will enable an early warning system and will make data collection more scientific and intelligent.

"What it means for the common man is that we would be able to `caution' them of any indication of an outbreak and release precautions to be taken. With the computerised registration of the OPD forms under the ICD-10 system, reports generated from the various hospitals will help predict the changes in the disease pattern on daily/weekly basis, thus helping us take action against various communicable diseases at an early stage,'' explained a health official.

The project, according to officials, has been outsourced to M/s XO Infotech Ltd. which will be providing total hardware, software and manpower solution. "They will be paid on the basis of new OPD cards made and no payments will be made for the revisit patients. What we propose to do is simple -- the system begins with the doctor now keeping a carbon copy of the slip being given to the patient, the same will be collected and entered into the computer at the end of the day to be analysed and studied for indicating trends or worrying signals. The project has interested several private players including Apollo and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and we will be only happy to share the information,'' according to the Chief Medical Officer, State Health Intelligence Bureau, Directorate of Health Services, Anjan Prakash.

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