Delhi govt mulls health ID cards for patients

Seeking to facilitate patients in maintaining their medical history and create a real-time data on diseases, Delhi government is mulling introducing health identity cards that would allow them to avail health services in government and private hospitals, polyclinics and mohalla clinics in the city.
The health card will have an ID and all hospitals and the Health Department of Delhi government will have demographic, medical history and treatment details of a patient.
According to a senior Delhi government official, the initiative will help create a real-time data on disease burden and the entire data will be available online under the Hospital Integrated System (HIS).

"Once the scheme is in place, patients will not have to carry their medical and treatment records while visiting hospitals. They can simply carry along the health card having the unique ID.
"Once the hospital enters the ID number in the system, they would be able to access all his medical history and treatment details. Also, the details will be uploaded on the health department web portal which the patient can access anytime," said the official.
The official said that collection of such data from across the state will also help government to come up with policies or prepare an action plan to fight diseases.

According to the official, an online record of all the state blood banks and the current availability of blood will be available.
"This would help a patient check the availability of a particular blood group along with helping the department to regulate it according to its scarcity at other places," the official added.