TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza launched a private cloud based health application at Mapusa District hospital on Saturday with the intent to unify the complete medical records of every Goan resident. Each individual will have a unique Medical Record Number under which all his or her digitized health records will be tracked, thereby enabling secure Electronic Medical Record which will be accessible to authorized personnel in any government medical centre in Goa.
This first of its kind effort is part of the United Telecoms Limited under the Department of Information Technology & Communication, implementation of a fiber based Gigabit State Wide Area Network – GBBN (Goa Broadband Network) – aimed at connecting all government offices as well as delivering broadband services.
to citizens, industry and enterprise through FTTH.
This application will now be implemented across the District Health System throughout the State over the next one to two years.
In his opening remarks, the deputy chief minister highlighted how this system will benefit both the patient and the State and that the immediate availability of a patient’s history anywhere in Goa, will automatically lead to better clinical care and diagnoses, as well as a reduction in the number of investigations being ordered.
“Similarly, access to their own medical record will lead the patient to take better control of their own preventive health,” he said.
From the State’s perspective, D’Souza said that this would lead to better management of financial as well as medical resources across all health facilities and the State will now have more pro-active control over early detection of communicable diseases, more efficient distribution of drugs and efficient management of preventive care. “This would help in prioritized care, as required, for the elderly, women, children in specific areas of the State,” he said.
Director of Health Services Dr Sanjeev Dalvi said he was sure that the application would meet our needs as another convenience to stay in touch and up-to-date with our health system.
