The Ministry of Information Technology (IT) Monday handed over the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) project "Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) at Tertiary Health Care Level to Sheikh Zayed Medical Complex (SZMC) Lahore. The said PSDP project was originally approved by Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on October 28, 2005; and the first deadline of the project was 2008, however the project was delayed time and again for reasons unknown, a spokesperson of the ministry said.
The total cost of the project is Rs 39 million where Rs 28 million have been spent while the remaining Rs 11 million would be spent on installation of servers and payment of salaries to employees by the Punjab government, he added. The Ministry has already sent 14 PSDP projects to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) delayed time and again and irregularities allegedly reported in the projects, spokesperson maintained.
In this regard, a handing over and taking over meeting was held in the ministry with the State Minister for IT in the chair, which was also attended by P&D Punjab Irfan Elahi, Secretary IT Azmat Ali Ranjha, DG PCB, Syed Iftikhar H Shah, representative from HMIS Sheikh Zayed Hospital Lahore and PITB. The meeting was informed that at present core software modules of health management Information System (HMIS) have been successfully developed and functional at SZH Lahore.
Addressing on the occasion, the minister said that after the 18th amendment, provincial autonomy does not allow the federal government to carry out such projects in the provinces independently; therefore the project was handed over to the Punjab government. The training has already been imparted to the hospital staff. Since August, 2013 to date, Ministry of IT, has aggressively perused the project and significant progress has been made on the said project. The present government has given high priority to e-government particularly e-health to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, public facilitation and to promote less paper environment in the public sector, the spokesperson added.
The minister elaborated that considerable progress has been made on the said project by the key stakeholders and its successful implementation at SZMC as a model HMIS application within stipulated period of time is a landmark achievement. The said system will be replicated at other public sector hospitals in phased manner.
While focusing on the scope of the project, the minister said that the project was meant to develop and implement HMIS at Sheikh Zayed Medical Complex (SZMC) including the provision of basic IT infrastructure (servers, desktop Pc's, ups, LAN connectivity & other equipment) , training of hospital staff, for recording and tracking patient's information electronically, strengthening of the administrative control to bring improvement in patient's care and to ensure better management system at the institution were mandated in the project.
Currently, all the software modules of HMIS have been developed and the core modules which includes Patient Registration, Outpatient & Specialties/Consultant Management, In-Patient & Emergency/Casualty Management, Operations Theatre Management, Intensive Care Unit Management, Diagnostic Information Management, Clinical Laboratory Module, Patient Billing & Income Management, Medical Stores & Pharmacy Management, Blood Bank Management, Library Management System and Medical Record Management Systems are in use at SZMC, Lahore since last month. The non-core software modules consists of Asset Management, Sheikh Zayed Web Portal, Dietary Management, Sterilising Services management, Complaint Management, Payroll Management, Financial Assets Management, Estate & Nursing Hostel Management, Help Desk/Public Relation Centre and Cafeteria Management Systems are ready for implementation.