Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday reviewed the ambitious Health Information Management System (HIMS) project and directed the officials to ensure that the distribution of the health cards is started at the earliest so that the citizens can take benefits of the healthcare delivery process.
“The HIMS will be implemented by August 2021 in all the Delhi Government hospitals. The system seeks to target the healthcare delivery process. All the patient care services, hospital administration, budgeting and planning, supply chain management, and backend services and processes will be brought under the system. As far as the deployment model is concerned, the entire system will be on the cloud and digitized,” a senior Government official said.
“The move will enable the citizens to avail information on one platform, which will help them in emergency cases. With this, Delhi will become the only state to have a cloud-based health management system. This facility will also be extended to private hospitals in the future,” the official said.
The meeting was also attended by Health and Family Welfare Minister Satyendar Jain and other health departmental officials to discuss the progress of HIMS project, e-health card, and health helpline. Apprising the CM regarding the progress of the project, the department officials said that the work is being done as per schedule. The vendor will be selected by February 2021 and the system will be implemented by August 2021.
The CM directed the concerned authorities to ensure that the project is finalized by the middle of next year (2021). Health Minister Satyendar Jain also expressed satisfaction over the speedy work done by the health department on HIMS, e-health card, and health helpline and instructed the department to complete the same within the time frame.
The health officials gave a presentation for the implementation of HIMS and issuing of the e-health cards. Under HIMS, various features such as a web portal, mobile app, etc will be launched to store a database of the health information of the residents of Delhi.
A health department official said, "Around 46 companies participated in the pre-bid conference of HIMS, while 37 companies showed interest in the conference. “At the same time, 25 companies have procured RFP while some more companies are in the process. About 1239 questions were received from 27 companies till 4 PM on 8th December 2020. Three companies submitted their questions after the expiry of the deadline, while 916 questions came from six companies. NIT/RFP was issued on 11th November for selection of managed service provider for bid process management under Delhi HIMS project.”
“The pre-bid meeting took place on 21st December, the last date for submission of bids and bid evaluation is 19th January 2021, while the vendor selection process is 20th February 2021. The selected service provider company will maintain MIMS till January 2026,” he added.
The Delhi government will also be issuing an e-health card to the people, which will be a QR based card to identify and track demographic and basic clinical details of every patient. Through the card, the residents of Delhi will be mapped for all eligible schemes and programs.
All family members will be mapped through e-health card for health plans and programs. Integration with HIMS will be done for seamless information exchange. Physical cards with QR codes will be distributed to each person after physical verification. Also, a provision will be made for issuing modified or duplicate cards at the request of the people.
A centralized centre will be set up at two levels to implement the scheme. In the first level, the centre operator will receive people's calls and messages. The CRM will be able to assess the tax case and resolve it and tell the concerned available healthcare staff, he said.
“The operator will give the relevant information to the caller and finally the report will be made. In the second level, the Delhi government doctors and an expert will give the patients an appointment to meet after receiving the message. If the case is an emergency, they will immediately accept the calls of the patients, to resolve their issues. If required, they will contact specialized doctors for any disease. It will then update the patient on the CRM by giving information,” he added.