After the failure of MDGs (millennium development goals), the
United Nations member countries came up with the 2030 agenda called SDGs
(sustainable development goals) which provides a shared blueprint for peace and
prosperity for the people and to the planet ,now and into the future. Out of the
17 SDGs goals, goal-3 calls for good health and well-being, while the others
which are about poverty, hunger, clean water and environment are too closely
related to it.
Like other developing countries, Pakistan too is trying to achieve this goal of
advanced and standard healthcare through bringing structural reforms, increasing
investments, improving governance, strengthening the institutions and
introducing information technology in health sector.After realizing the need
that incorporation of information technology in health sector has been
inevitable, Pakistan has introduced the Hospital information management system (HIMS)
and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems to revolutionize the health sector.
This initiative with the earnest efforts of Punjab Information Technology
Board(PITB), has been started from the grassroots level at DHQ and THQ all over
the Punjab and moving towards the specialized healthcare to connect all
healthcare sectors digitally per se.
In 1999, PITB was established by government of Pakistan at provincial level
using IT industry, academia and cogent government institutionsand later attached
to the Planning and Development Department with the mission to create
error-free, highly efficient and organized, thoroughly systematic, and paperless
environment insides the healthcare facilities.
From patient entrance inside the hospital, HIMS accompanies the patient through
QueueManagement System (QMS), patient registration and recording patients'vitals
and history at the nursing station.When the patients move to the physician, it
optimises patient care by giving complete record of patients'laboratory reports,
current medication, disease, family and medication history and patients' current
vitals data saved in the system .Then medicine dispensation from the pharmacy is
done by the help of Electronic Medical Records (EMR ) so that pharmacist could
choose the best possible medicines for the patient according to the diagnosis
and other rudimentary parameters.
PITB has also provided Hospital Watch App to the local administration to check
the working of hospital staff from Biometric Attendance System (BAS) to daily
patient checkup per physicians and daily use of medicines for the efficient
performance evaluation of the healthcare staff to the enhanced service delivery
at the public health facilities.Apart from this, HIMS is also serving as the
backbone of the state-of-the-art health institutions like Pakistan Kidney and
Liver Institution (PKLI) and Indus Hospitalsin Pakistan.
There is no denying the fact that this system has ensured transparency in the
health budget estimation,making and utilization, quality medicine purchase and
easy access to the patients essentially. Moreover,it has helped in across the
board accountability in health sector by initiating Medicine Inventory
Management System (MIMS),Local Purchase portal (LP) and Drug Testing
Laboratories connected to the Drug Inspectors through Medicine Surveillance
System (MSS).
When we see the frequent medication errors like prescription, administration and
dispensation errors being occurred mostly by the professional healthcare staff,
we see HIMS as the last resort to succor the healthcare staff so that the
ultimate goal of patient care can be achieved.
Further, PITB has also introduced E-Vacc system for tracking vaccinators, Dengue
Active Tracking System for mass awareness and for the policy makers to locate
the highly alert areas to devise the effective preventive and treatment
strategies .The Geo-Tagged medical stores,distribution and manufacturing units
cannot escape the inspection through this system now.
The competent authorities of PITB Chairman Azfar Manzoor, DG Sajid Latif, ADG
Saflain Haider, Director Khurram Mustaqand its qualified teams working in the
healthcare facilities in Punjab must be applauded for their endeavors to make
this system more acceptable, friendly and apprehendable for the users
(healthcare professionals and administration) and beneficial for the public
health.Such a team is acting as a role model to start this landmark in other
provinces as well in the future.
In a nutshell, HIMS has become the integral part of our healthcare system
provided by PITB.It has provided the advanced, innovative and integrated
solution to our healthcare issues.By providing the data of active
polio,hepatitis and HIV cases, the medical decision making at the lower level to
the medical policy making at the higher level has been revamped entirely.Thus,
making this unprecedented model a success story is the only way we could fulfill
our national obligation of universal healthcare and international commitment of
SDGs. PITB Working on the vision of our honorable Prime Minister Imran Ahmed
khan Naizi & Respected Health Minister Dr. Yasmeen Rashid to uplift healthcare
system according to western countries.