21 medical colleges in Maharashtra miss deadline to digitise patient information

Mumbai: Two major medical colleges in the city and 19 in Maharashtra are set to miss the Monday deadline set by National Medical Commission (NMC) to start using the Hospital Management Information System (HMIS), a digital tool to collect, store and process health information. NMC, India's medical education regulator, has been pursuing the use of digital tools to improve patient care and the efficiency of teaching hospitals.

In Mumbai, BYL Nair and RN Cooper are the only major teaching colleges that have started using HMIS for up to 60% of services. However, LTMG in Sion and KEM in Parel haven't installed the software and have just begun their scramble for devices for digital operations. Outside Mumbai, the medical education department abruptly discontinued HMIS in 14 medical colleges four months ago over differences with the provider on upgrades and charges. Far from digitising all operations, almost all state-run colleges are back to manual record-keeping.

On October 4, the NMC, in a terse letter, asked deans of all medical colleges to begin using HMIS. "Failure of this would be viewed seriously," the letter by Dr Suresh Chandra Sharma, chairman of NMC, read. The letter said recognition of any new college, renewal, increase in seats will be declined if the institute doesn't have a fully functioning HMIS to digitally register outpatient and inpatients, surgeries, lab and radiology tests, childbirths, etc.

Dr Neelam Andrade, director of major civic hospitals, confirmed that only Nair and Cooper would meet the Monday deadline, while the rest have to catch up. The idea of HMIS has been resisted by doctors, nurses and technical staff in BMC who called it impractical to log every patient's data while hundreds stood in queue. "But with NMC's orders, HMIS can no longer to pushed away," Andrade told TOI.

Nair Hospital was the first to start using HMIS in 2018 as a pilot. From strong resistance that saw 10 sabotaged computers and printers, the hospital now sees 100% OPD registrations, 80% blood reports, billing, discharges and pharmacy supplies logged online. "Every change meets resistance at the beginning, but medicos have come to see its advantage," said dean Dr Pravin Rathi. The hospital registers up to 22 lakh patients annually, details of which can be accessed online in minutes, he said.

HMIS has cut down patient registration time by more than half from four hours, prevented duplication of pathological and radiological tests in medico-legal cases, and sped up discharges that allow beds to open up swiftly, said Dr Sarika Chapane, MCGM HMIS nodal officer. However, inpatient details are still not on HMIS due to resistance from nurses and a shortage of manpower. Dr Andrade said BMC would shortly float a tender for an upgraded HMIS that will allow patients to pay digitally besides cash, take appointments, etc.