National Workshop on IT Solutions for AYUSH Concludes with High Promise

KOTTAYAM:

AYUSH institutions in all States are poised to incorporate key innovative ideas of others highlighted at a two-day national workshop to fast-pace the process of reducing the digital divide and increase the popularity of AYUSH across the country.

Senior officials from several States expressed their willingness to adopt impactful practices of others and achieve digital readiness quickly, incorporating innovative features. Participating at the workshop on ‘IT Solutions for AYUSH Sector’, they revealed their plans to implement certain solutions in their institutions for smoother citizen-centric service.

The decisions gave impetus towards developing a comprehensive and inter-operable digital framework for AYUSH, which was the fundamental idea behind the event which concluded today. Organised at Kumarakom by the National AYUSH Mission (NAM) Kerala in association with the State government’s Department of AYUSH and under the aegis of the Union AYUSH Ministry, the deliberations were led by delegates from 28 states and eight Union Territories.

Manipur, for instance, is poised to make a major stride in keeping the attendance at its 24 AYUSH institutions. As part of going more digital, the North-eastern state will go for central biometric Aadhar-based attendance for the staff, according to Dr Bishwanath Sharma, Additional Director, Directorate of AYUSH, Manipur.

Further, Kerala’s NextGen e-hospital has attracted the delegates from Imphal, who were all praise for the one-stop solution that helps patients to connect with hospitals and doctors on a single digital platform. “To implement this in Manipur, we have got in touch with National Informatics Centre for a hopeful collaboration,” said Dr Sharma, who led a five-member team from his state at the workshop in KTDC Waterscapes. Also, Manipur is planning to launch a Learning Management System, as done by NAM Kerala.

Delhi, for all its strides in AYUSH, continues to rely largely on manual operations for its routine services. “This requires a change, for which this workshop has given us fresh ideas,” said Dr Akhilesh Vashishtha, who is AYUSH consultant from Delhi. “Right from the first step of giving a patient his or her token at the counter, we need to go digital for improved efficiency and total transparency.”

A senior official from North India described Kerala’s strides in IT as “marvelous”, adding, “It is hard to believe that States can do such wonderful initiatives.”

Delegates from Jharkhand spoke of the added benefits if their State’s AYUSH institutions integrated the existing DVDMS (Drugs and Vaccine Distribution Management System) with the novel A-HiMS 2.0 (AYUSH Homeopathy Information Management System) that has emerged in Kerala as a comprehensive IT platform which effectively manages all functions of healthcare delivery and patient care. “This will ease the entire chain of operations,” said Dr Priya Nandan, Implementation Officer, IT Cell, Jharkhand.

Karnataka’s AYUSH services can further improve with the adoption of A-HiMS in HR management and payroll for the contract staff, according to Saraswathi Navalli, Project Director, NAM Karnataka. Also, ERP software will be ideal for integrating business resources, operations, monitoring, reporting, sales, accounting and finance, she added.

Officials from Gujarat said the State could adopt e-hospital as a software application for patient registration in the OPD and casualty departments as well as to book, confirm and cancel appointments. “We also got fresh ideas that can bring new features to our HR modules,” said Jayesh M. Parmar, Director, AYUSH Gujarat.

The workshop will be followed by field visits this Saturday and Sunday to Kerala’s AYUSH facilities in three districts. It will enable the participants to get a first-hand idea about the diverse models of AYUSH service delivery, besides the Sports Ayurveda Project and initiatives such as Arogyanouka, Palliative Care, Drishti and Ayurkarma.