PESHAWAR: The Lady Reading Hospital, which is the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s oldest and biggest health facility, has become the first public sector hospital to begin electronic registration of patients at its outpatient department (OPD).

The new system is being put in place under the Medical Teaching Institutions Act 2015, which seeks to provide prompt treatment to the patients at the government hospitals.

Of late, people prefer to seek private treatment instead of landing in government hospitals due to unavailability of medicines, out-of-order lifts, machines, X-ray plants, wheelchairs and faulty air-conditioning system. However, the poor totally bank on the state-run hospitals and are destined to come there. Patients are given one year on even more time on waiting lists for operations.

The 1,700-bed hospital was visited by 7,000 patients daily. The accident and emergency department of LRH has treated the largest number of victims of bomb attacks. The move to streamline patients’ registration is aimed at recording their complete data for informing them about the scheduled follow-up visits.

System to enable the hospital admin to keep medical records of patients

The heavily burdened hospital receives patients from the province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. As opposed to manual issuance of OPD slips to patients, the token system does not need people to stand in queues, but to look at the screen where the name and number is displayed.

The main objective of installing the token system is to save the patients’ time and provide them better facilitation and healthcare services at the hospital, which is the first practical step towards MTI’s implementation. Since launch of the system on Sept 21, the patients and their relatives receive OPD chit within 10 to 15 minutes to visit the consultant clinic in the lower OPD.

The officials said that the chit from18 separate counters were issued for male, female, senior citizens, special persons and the hospital staff. Under the new initiative, the patients get the token from the machines installed in OPD on the basis of which they were issued chits.

Previously, registration was done manually and the doctors relied on the patients’ documents, they said. Now their names appear on the LED screens.

The officials said that they were also planning to introduce triage center where senior medical officers and medical officers would examine patients, while those requiring specialised treatment would be sent to relevant clinical specialties. In case of minor ailments the patients will be sent home after prescribing drugs.

The area for the triage center has been specified in OPD, they said and added that renovation of doctors’ rooms was in progress and the staff and equipment are being provided.

They said that the system was also being installed in the pathology and radiology departments to save people from long delays in getting their investigations done.

Electronic registration system will enable the administration to have the medical record of every patient who will be issued a card with number that will help the caregivers to prescribe appropriate medicines in light of patients’ medical history and advise follow-up visit to the patients accordingly.

The officials said that they were introducing some modifications prior to making the system operational. Launching of token system for patients at OPD is the first step towards the launch of institution-based practice at the hospital where both paying and non-paying patients would be treated at the hospital. The officials said that many consultants had opted to start IBP in the evening and they would soon be launching it once renovation work was completed.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2015

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