Role of IT in Health Sector

Dr. R.C.Patnaik 
Chief Director - IT
Municipal Corporation of Delhi

A Government body which can be perceived as rapidly becoming e-savvy is the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). It is said to be the world's second-largest municipal body after Tokyo.  MCD has introduced computerization in most of the services rendered to the citizen in recent past and these ICT based projects are being sustained along the expected lines. 

In the last couple of decades, changes have been observed in the health sector. The increasing population has grossly affected the health sector. The number of clinics / hospitals have been increased both in private and govt. sector. There is also a change in quality of service offered because of advanced technology.  The private sector has gone miles ahead because of capital investment for profitability, adaption of technologies etc. Health care has become affordable due to introduction of insurance and re-imbursement. A number of corporate hospitals like Apollo, Max, Fortis etc have come to existence where the quality of service rendered to patients has improved because of the introduction of technology, qualified manpower as well as computerization. These providers are confined to secondary and tertiary care organised in one building i.e. clinic / hospital.

Though the Government sector has also been able to match with changes in technology, a lot of other areas demand utter attention. The time a patient wastes waiting in a govt.  hospital has gone up because of inadequate manpower which is compounded by budgetary constraints,  political interference etc. The number and socio-economic status of patients availing healthcare facilities in Government  institutions can not be  compared with private sector institutions. Due to defunct monitoring system the work load on medical and paramedical staff has not been evaluated regularly which is grossly affecting the quality of care with which the patients should be treated. Most of the Government Sector health care units follow the manual system where a lot of duplication of work report are seen, there is a lack of control and accountability for medicines and consumables in medical stores. The administrators are also unable to get hold of various statutory reports. However, some parts of renowned hospitals like AIIMS, Safdarjung, RML, LNJP has been computerised but still there remains a need to be done a lot more. The staffs have not been able to accept the change in the pretext of work load. In addition, the referral system is defunct and monitoring and tracking of patient has not been possible so far. 

MCD however has taken the initiation in a different way. To overcome the deficiencies and increase citizen satisfaction, MCD decided to reform the existing system by introducing computerization.  “As a public body, MCD's objectives are slightly different from private sector units which are involved in Health Care. MCD has focused not only in Secondary or Tertiary Care but also in Primary & preventive health care. The citizen visiting Govt hospitals mostly belong to lower socio-economic status and the number of visitors is very high. Understanding this requirement, a number of health care delivery systems are followed in MCD i.e. primary health care through dispensaries,  allopathic, ayurvedic, unani and  homeopathy poly-clinics, PHC, mothers & child care through maternity homes , maternity centres,  care for school children through school health scheme, implementing national programmes like RNTCP, Family planning etc, secondary & tertiary care through hospitals . In addition, it takes care of prevention of diseases through diseases surveillance & remedial measures.   So the delivery system is not confined to single building/ campus but spreads across the geographical boundary of the state. As per news, MCD has already implemented ICT based solution in different fields of Healthcare like Registration of Births and Deaths, Hospital information system, Immunization, Mother & Child care, TB patient tracking & monitoring system, on-line disease surveillance etc.   Most of the application softwares are being sustained since many years. The end users are comfortably using computers and the initial reluctance in adapting to a computerized system has been overcome. 

On inquiry it was found that one Medical Officer is heading the I.T. department of MCD. He is Dr. R.C.Patnaik, an MBBS from MKCG Medical College, Orissa. Dr. Patnaik joined MCD as a medical officer. An MBA from the prestigious FMS of Delhi University specializing in Health Care Administration he started his carrier in Hospital Administration as Medical Superintendent of Majeedia Hospital for 5 Years. He was then directed to start implementing I.T. in reforming the health sector of MCD. He had training in I.T. application in Public Administration in Japan.  Two of his projects which have got recognition at national level are Registration of Birth and Deaths and Hospital Information System. Recently, he has been identified as one of the Top 37 Health Care personnels of India as per the publication e-health in the issue Road To Top, for his contribution in the field of Health Informatics. Now he is handling the e-gov project of MCD as Chief Director I.T.