ISLAMABAD: The Shifa International Hospital is to deploy Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to help deliver a virtual hospital.

Accessed via a third-party mobile application, "eShifa Home Health Services" will give patients access to online doctor consultations, laboratory and nursing services, Dr Farah Ansari, medical director, eShifa said.

Dr Ansari said that inline with the latest global practices with the OCI, the hospital could help enhance the healthcare experience by offering greater and smarter home health services to all in the comfort of their own home, reducing wait times, the risk of infection, and easing the burden on the hospital. According to Dr Ansari, "Technology has the potential to greatly improve the way we provide medical care, making it possible for every person to have access to quality healthcare services that are on par with hospital-level care from the comfort of their own home. All they need is an internet connection and a smartphone. We really believe this innovative service has the potential to revamp healthcare in Pakistan and place us among the innovative leaders in the industry."

"To help deliver on this vision, we chose OCI because it provides a high-performance cloud foundation backed by robust security, scalability and resilience," she added. The OCI will provide a highly scalable, cost-effective cloud platform on which the hospital will run its Hospital Management Information System (HMIS). Data integrity between the hospital's on-premises HMIS and eShifa cloud application will be ensured using Oracle GoldenGate 19c on OCI Marketplace, which will provide high-performance data replication.

"Healthcare providers today face a number of significant challenges to provide uninterrupted healthcare services, and to keep on improving service delivery in these challenging times," said Amer Khan, senior sales director, Technology Business, Oracle Pakistan. "Oracle Cloud can help Shifa International Hospital run its eShifa Home Health Services securely and smoothly, helping to provide the same level of support to the patients at their doorstep as they would get in the hospital," he added.

Shifa International Hospital's IT team is implementing the solution with support from Oracle.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020