A working group of the Planning Commission has suggested setting up of a National Mission on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Health with a clear mandate to conceive design, and deliver ICT based health education and health care and converge all existing programmes under this mission.

The working group, in a recent report to the Planning Commission which is finalising the strategies for the next five year plan, has also recommended a budgetary allocation of Rs.600 crore for ICT in health. It also asked for encouraging trans-disciplinary research in medicine by associating with scientists, engineeRs.and technologists.

“Introduce a didactic cum practical couRs.at MBBS and MD (all specialties) highlighting the prospects of using ICT in Medicine. Define the use of EMR in an integrated manner to seamlessly bring together primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare. Once the pilot projects are successful, design the health referral chain with ICT integrated. Redefine the medical protocols as necessary and create sufficient hardware and software to automate the process. Emphasize on use of local languages and dialects, as it relates to common man,” according to the recommendations by the panel.

Hospital Management System should be installed in all the institutions of tertiary care and district hospitals and a separate IT cell should be created in the ministry of health & family welfare (MoHFW) at the Centre. This centre will develop appropriate formats for appraisal of performance and collect real time data for reports and forward those reports to appropriate authorities for review and necessary action, it said.

The panel also suggested reform and transform health education across the country using ICT and NKN to maximally utilize the services of content experts in medicine, science, engineering and technology for undergraduate and post graduate education.