20 Govt hospitals in Delhi to have cross-referral mechanism for emergency patients

New Delhi: In a bid to develop a formal mechanism for the cross-referral of stable emergency patients to other government hospitals, AIIMS Delhi Director Dr M Srinivas recently met with Medical Superintendents and Directors of 20 government hospitals regarding emergency referrals.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has launched a dashboard on its website which shows bed availability and the number of patients waiting for admissions.

"AIIMS, New Delhi launched the 'AIIMS Main Hospital Casualty Dashboard' on its website, which in real time shows the emergency beds status and the number of patients waiting for admissions on these beds. AIIMS New Delhi has taken the first step to increase transparency." said the spokesperson.

In the meeting, the Medical superintendents and directors of other government hospitals discussed about cross reference so that patient can get beds during emergency, "so that we can have cross reference, communication dedicated nodal officers, so that of patients when they are referred from one place to another, they can be taken care of better and patient care services in Delhi NCR improves in all government hospitals."

"We discussed about the database about the availability of beds in other government hospitals. There should be a cross referral means not only AIIMS, but also a patient can be referred to the other Hospitals. All the hospitals are facing some or other problem, so we have decided to make network of emergency services and develop system for cross referrals. We have also discussed that there should be proper communication and a patient should get proper treatment." he explained further.

Recently, according to the office memorandum issued by Dr Srinivas, "the emergency department of AIIMS New Delhi is handling around 600 patients a day which has both critical and non critical cases. AIIMS also receives referral of critical patients from government hospitals which they are not able to handle either due to lack of super speciality department or due to constraint of bed in the hospital."

"There is no formal referral mechanism between the government hospitals of Delhi for stable patients and the patients face inconvenience having to move from one hospital to other in search of bed," he said.

The AIIMS, Delhi Director also convened a meeting to discuss coordination between hospitals of Delhi for stable patients and AIIMS Delhi, " All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi convened a meeting to discuss coordination between hospitals of Delhi for stable emergency patients. The Medical Directors, Medical Superintendents of Safdarjung Hospital, RML, LHMC, SVBP, DDU, Indra Gandhi Hospital, ILBS, NDMC, LNJP hospital, IHBAS, Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital, Acharya Shree Bhikshu Hospital, Charak Pallika attended the meeting."

During meeting AIIMS Director also discussed about human network to communicate between hospitals before referrals and training programme to develop expertise. "At the outset, Prof M Srinivas, Director AIIMS emphasized on the need of real time emergency bed availability of all the hospitals, integrated unified dashboard of bed status, human network to communicate between hospitals before referrals, two-way referral of critical and non-critical cases, training programme to develop expertise." explained spokesperson

"The Director AIIMS suggested to formulate a mechanism of two-way referral of patients i.e., the hospital with lesser expertise can send their critical patients to higher centre while higher centre can refer their stable emergency patients to hospitals with general specialities."

In a meeting AIIMS, New Delhi proposed customized training programmes and education of staff for hospitals which can be 1 week, 1 month, 6 months or even 1 year long, to develop expertise in the field of handling emergency critical cases in their respective hospitals.

The "Video teleconsultation" for patients in emergency requiring superspecialist consult was discussed. It was discussed to resource map the government hospitals in Delhi so that the resources can be utilized optimally.

"Patient tracker system" was showcased by AIIMS New Delhi, where the doctors can see the current status of their patient in emergency, for example, what investigation are pending/ which referral call to specialty department is pending, time in emergency, etc. Other initiatives to be taken by AIIMS New Delhi. RFID enabled waiting hall for the patients' attendants," reads the information given by spokesperson

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