HC directs Delhi Govt to Develop Health Information Management System

New Delhi: In order to make all the information related to health institutions easily accessible to people, the Delhi High Court recently directed the Delhi Government for developing the Health Information Management System as expeditiously as possible.

For this, the High Court bench comprising of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad has given the Government eight weeks time from the date of the order, i.e. August 2, 2022.

The court was considering a bunch of pleas which addressed the issues related to management of COVID-19 in Delhi and sought relief. Recently, the State submitted a status report referring to the work that has been completed in respect of the directions issued by the Court in its order dated 01.02.2022.

In the recent status report, among other things, the State also referred to the plans for developing health information management system. Previously, the Government had informed the Court about the state's decision for engaging M/s NEC Corporation Limited for this purpose. 

The state had also informed that the company had started the development of modules as required by different hospitals for providing an end to end solution for all information related to health institutes. For this purpose, the company was engaging with various hospitals to finalise the work flow of the user interface of different modules.

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Back then, it had further been informed by the State that the governance structure as per the RFP had already been put in place and April 2022 had been mentioned as the deadline for preparation of some of the major modules.

Perusing the status report, the HC bench had suggested the Government at that time for exploring the possibility of developing a mobile application, so that users can access information through the mobile application with regard to availability of nearby hospitals; the specialities that they are offering and the bed availability position. It had further been suggested that the possibility of including other related services in the mobile app such as booking an ambulance, reserving a bed etc. should also be explored.

Responding to the Court's direction, the State in its recently submitted status report mentioned that already a Letter of Intent has been issued to M/S NEC corporation Ltd. And the agency has started work on the module. The State also assured the court that all the modules of health information management system for the 2 hospitals namely, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital & Guru Govind Singh Hospital) and allied medical institutions will be completed by Sep 2022.

Besides, the Court also informed the court that a Mobile application will also be developed along with the software solution by the Agency.

Taking note of the Government's progress in this regard, the bench directed to complete the modules as early as possible. "It is expected that the health information management system will be developed as expeditiously as possible, preferably within eight weeks from today," read the order.

Apart from this, the Government also informed the court about its preparedness of any emergent eventuality wherein the services would be reactivated on short notice. Besides, the Status report by the Delhi Government further informed about the decrease in the positivity rate of COVID-19 cases in Delhi and the Government's decision for de-escalating the COVID beds and COVID ICU beds in the hospitals.

The Government also stated in the Status report that Rs 50,000 is being paid to the kin of each of the deceased person due to Covid-19 from Delhi Disaster Response Fund. In addition, another Rs 50,000 is being paid to each of the kind of the deceased persons due to COVID-19 under Mukhymantry Covid-19 Pariwar Arthik Sahayata Yojana from funds of Delhi Government.

In case of any grievances of any applicant, Grievance Redressal Committee will relook each of the rejected cases by the district offices afresh and decide the case as per guidelines issued by the Revenue Department in compliance of Hon'ble Supreme Court order, further informed the State.

To view the order, click on the link below.

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/delhi-hc-order-185926.pdf

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