KATHMANDU, Feb 1: The Ministry of Health and Population is planning to implement an integrated electronic system in government health facilities in order to avoid repetition of the same health check up.
As per a decision enforced by Health Minister Pradeep Paudel, once the information of a patient’s health check conducted in a hospital is shared to the next health facility, the patients will not have to undergo unnecessary tests again. The ministry believes this would help curb unnecessary burden on the patients and also reduce the diagnosis time and cost of treatment.
The Directive on Electronic Medical Archive System Operation and Management, 2081 endorsed by Minister Paudel aims to wipe out duplication in patients' health tests, and reduce cost and time of treatment. It further contributes to generating integrated data for making an informed health policy.
The integrated electronic system would be under the control of the Health Ministry, according to Minister Paudel.
Both the government and private health institutes are obliged to maintain health data of the patients in the electronic medical archive system so that it could be shared when necessary.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, Dr Prakash Budhathoki, said that such an integrated system would remove the hassles of carrying papers by the patients while the hospitals will be held accountable for managing the patient’s files.
"Although Nepal's hospitals have launched electronic systems, the data they have are not exchangeable. Therefore, the people visiting hospitals are forced to undergo the same health tests in different hospitals. Once the new system is put in place, such hassles and inconvenience would end completely," he explained.
RSS