Balochistan hospitals to be automated

Balochistan Secretary Health says the new system will work as dashboard

QUETTA: Steps are being taken to establish automatic systems in different medical centres of Balochistan to cope with the demands of the modern era.

Balochistan Secretary Health Noorul Haq Baloch, addressing an orientation session of Health Management Information System on Saturday, said that the new system would be set up in Civil Hospital Quetta, Bolan Medical Complex Hospital Quetta and Sheikh Zahid Hospital.

Additional Secretary Health Abdul Rauf Baloch, medical superintendents of all three hospitals, professors and others were present during the session.

Briefing the participants, the officials said that it would be the only automatic system of its kind since the modern system does not exist in any state-run hospital across the country. The officials said that the new system would work like a dashboard consisting of all the information regarding patients including their previous records, details of medications, diagnosis, tests etc. The system would be installed in all the three hospitals on experimental basis.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary Health Noorul Haq Baloch said that the system in place currently does not suffice the needs of the patients owing to its manual working system which fails to bring out the overall performance of the health department, adding that this model would work like National Medical Centre Karachi which would help prevent the wastage of resources on the one hand and enable authorities concerned to evaluate the performance of the health department on the other.

“It is a pressing need of the time that we start using computerised dashboard system,” said Baloch.

He said that the installation of this automatic system would bring a dramatic improvement in the performance the hospitals.

Later, it was also decided that a proposal to upgrade Bolan Medical College to university would be presented before cabinet and provincial assembly for approval.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2017.