Capabilities Desired for Hospital Management System in India

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Aravind Kejriwal recently directed the health
officials in Delhi to develop a hospital
management system of global standards. While
hospital management systems have been in use for
a while, there are currently no rules or
regulations that lay down the standards for them
in India. In the US electronic health records are
regulated by the Health Information Technology
for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act)
and the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA Act). 
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In India, even though only the IT Act of 2000
applies for electronic health records, the
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have
recognized the need for electronic health records
and periodically issues standards for them, for
the purpose of promoting interoperability,
technical innovation, participation by vendors
and other stakeholders, and to support the
evolution and timely maintenance of adopted
standards.  Besides these guidelines, some other
key features also play a key role in making a
hospital management system best suited for the
Indian healthcare sector. Lets see what the
specific requirements for a hospital management
system in India are. 
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Aadhar as an identifying document.  According to
the recommendations by the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare, the electronic health record of a
patient must have the provision to include UIDAI
Aadhar number as the preferred identifier. In
case Aadhar information is unavailable, the
ministry recommends the use of a local identifier
(as per the scheme of the healthcare service
provider) and a photo ID issued by Central or
State government.
The system should have provision to accept a
minimum of two IDs when Aadhar ID is not
available. In the case of unidentified patients,
a local identifier may be used, and confirmed
identifiers inserted later when available. The
government recently opened doors for integrating
Aadhar with any software, but the software needs
to meet certain criteria. While the
recommendations are not implemented on a
mandatory basis, it may become so in the future
and therefore it is better to get software that
follows them.
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Support for GST The Government of India recently
passed the Goods and Services Act(GST) and many
healthcare services come under its ambit. One of
the important and commonly used aspects of
hospital management software is billing.
There are software that carries out the sole
purpose of billing, while most hospital database
management systems come integrated with it. With
the implementation of GST, along with other
service providers, healthcare providers such as
hospitals and clinics are required to comply with
the norms of GST. So it is important that a
hospital management software is able to handle
the billing according to GST norms, and
integrated with GST filing software.
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NABH accreditation Formed in 2005, National
Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers is
part of Quality Council of India and is the
principal accreditation for hospitals in India.
NABH accreditation is becoming more and more
important with the rise in medical tourism and
patient awareness about their rights.
Unlike ISO certification, NABH accreditation is
specific to the healthcare industry and focuses
on competency in terms of staff, equipment,
premises, etc. For NABH accreditation of a
hospital, the information management system of
the hospital should meet the necessary criteria.
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This includes that the records of every patient
are complete and accurate. It is necessary that
the policy measures are in place to ensure the
data integrity, confidentiality and security.  A
hospital management system plays a crucial role
in this. An HMS that can safely manage the
patient data in a safe and secure manner, and
keep it updated in a timely manner can make this
process much easier. The HMS must assure data
redundancy and integrity and should be secure
against data loss or theft, for the hospital to
easily achieve the NABH accreditation. The HMS
system must be capable of generating the data
points that must be submitted for NABH
accreditation.
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Sending info to local government Hospitals have
to send certain information, such as birth rates
and death rates, to the government periodically.
This is required for keeping track of the
population and related statistics. Sometimes
during a disease outbreak, government health
officials will need accurate data regarding the
affected individuals to tackle the issue
effectively.
One of the primary functions of a hospital
management system is the effective management of
data. It should be capable of storing, retrieving
and updating the information easily. With a
system that can easily sort through the relevant
data, the required data can be collected and sent
to the health officials easily and in a timely
manner. Without an effective system, the hospital
staff will have to manually go through a mountain
of data, wasting time and resources.  For more
info, visit MocDoc Healthcare Solution.