Hospital Management Information System Rolled Out In All 695 Railway Hospitals, Benefits Aplenty

In a mega milestone exercise of providing highly organised, fully computerised and comprehensively networked healthcare system for the benefit of employees, all the 695 hospitals and health units of Indian Railways across the country have been made more transparent, effective, efficient, accountable and patient-friendly with the implementation of
an extraordinarily sophisticated software system called Hospital Management Information System (HMIS).

The web-based, multi-module, feature-rich HMIS has been executed by RailTel, in association with Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC).

The cent per cent coverage of the railway health system with HMIS has been accomplished by RailTel, the PSU of the Railways, in a record time during the peak pandemic period.

The HMIS is an integrated clinical information system with the basic objective of improved hospital administration and patient healthcare. This will ensure a unique, novel and improved experience to hospital administration and patients.

HMIS has brought the entire Railways hospital management on a single architecture to provide faster and better healthcare. HMIS solution covers the entire gamut of Hospital Administration with around 25 modules that are relevant to Railway Hospitals including Clinical, Patient Services and Ancillary Modules including OPD, IPD, Labs, Pharmacy, Referrals, Medical Examinations, Sick-Fit Certifications, Reimbursement of Medical Claims, Queue Management, Mobile app, Electronic Medical Record, Investigation, Admission Discharge System etc.

The features of the software extend from customizing clinical data according to the departments and laboratories, multi hospital features that provide cross consultation, seamless interface with medical and other equipment.

The patients will have the benefit of accessing all their medical records on their mobile device.

As part of project implementation, the machines available in Railway Hospitals are also getting integrated to HMIS. With this integration, there is no requirement of manual data entry of lab test results and the results are directly received by patients on their mobile App.

The HMIS implementation on pilot basis was started in December 2020 and implemented in two phases which has just been completed in all hospitals/health units of Indian Railways.

The usage of HMIS system in Railway Hospital is steadily increasing with the completion of the project. In July 2021, total activities such as Registration, Doctor Prescription, Lab, Pharmacy, In-patient Count on HMIS was 1,72,364, which increased to 7,52,298 in November 2021, registering an increase of around 336 per cent.

It is further expected to increase continuously in future.

HMIS is going to address the fundamental needs of all the stakeholders.

Patients will be able to get faster and hassle-free health care access. With entire medical data readily available, doctors will be able to treat better with Clinical Knowledge support.

Administrators will be able to make better decisions with the systematic data going to be generated in HMIS.

Railway HMIS solution has also achieved significant milestones by fully complying with Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which makes Indian Railways future ready for reaping the true benefits of digital revolution in the health domain.

The web-based software of HMIS along with the data generated has been deployed/hosted over the RailTel cloud, which is MeitY empanelled. This gives tremendous advantage in the form of accessibility of data including patient Electronic Medical Records across all Railway Hospitals, while ensuring security of data from unauthorised access.

This platform is linked to the Unique Medical Identity (UMID) of employees, for which around 42 lakh UMID cards have been issued by Indian Railways to regular employees, pensioners and family members.

According to a senior Railtel official, "Patient satisfaction is the bottom-line of this whole project, helping them to have ease of access to healthcare in a hassle-free environment. It will help doctors in faster delivery of service with Clinical Knowledge support."

The official said, "Administrators will be able to make better decisions with the systematic and intelligent data that is going to be generated in HMIS. All the medical equipment, medical processes and various IT systems are going to be seamlessly integrated."

HMIS makes use of best technology practices with adoption of latest and emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

The official said HMIS Patient Mobile App has been launched for ensuring easy information access to patients related to their OPD Registrations, Doctor Prescriptions, Lab Reports, Self-registration etc.

With this the patients have been empowered to get easy access to all their Health Records anytime they need them. The app will also notify the patient about availability of their test reports for download and medicines for collection.

Through the ‘Self-Registration’ process, patients can directly register for OPD by scanning the specific QR code pasted outside the Doctor’s room, without having to wait in the queue at the registration counter.

Registered patients can also check their queue number in the mobile app and the current status can be checked in the Queue Management display systems available in the hospital.

Patients can also check the availability of Specialties, Medicines and Lab Tests in any Railway Hospital before visiting the hospital. Railway Medical Beneficiaries can also create Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission Health ID directly from the app.

Talking about the project, RailTel CMD Puneet Chawla said, "HMIS will be a sort of game changer for the health care system of Indian Railways. RailTel implemented the project on behalf of Indian Railways on a war footing scale and completed the task in record time despite Covid pandemic."

Chawla further said, "In fact, there was a time when a majority of members of the team working on the project was diagnosed Covid positive, yet the determination and dedication of the team succeeded in satisfactorily accomplishing the assignment."

"Implementation of HMIS is another important step in the country's journey towards digital transformation and will have a positive impact on the lives of more than 75 lakh Railwaymen, Pensioners and their families”, he added.