Universal Health Coverage Information Technology (UHC IT) Platform (Tamil Nadu)

Problem Statement

The State Health System is in need of intact forward and backward mechanism, within and between the health applications and, from community to tertiary care facility with user friendly IT Platform compatible for repeat process automation and advanced analytics like AI/ML and GIS.

Programme Description

All health applications are looking the disease conditions and events i.e. numerator. The state has conceptualized that the Comprehensive Universal Health Coverage IT platform with population as denominator is essential to establish a continuum of care from community to referral units. As a first step, Health IT standards was drafted, Family Folders module, outpatient module and drug inventory module were developed using the standards. Master registry of Facilities, Family folders, Address, GIS maps and data dictionary are the cornerstone of the UHC IT Systems development. All applications aim to have the 8 modules namely data collection, data management, data analytics, visualization, reporting, documentation, public and communication module, which are essential for any health/related programme integration with UHC IT systems in phased manner.

Programme Outcomes

Master Registry (Denominator): a common list for integrating all health and related applications:

• Health facilities.
• Geographical locations (address & admin units) with Service Area Mapping.
• Family Folders with individual details
• Fields and Options for selection like gender, lab test menu, diagnosis.

IT Enabled Service Delivery:

• Non communicable disease protocol is incorporated in the OP entry module. As and when the entry is made, interpretation is shown for decision support.
• Drug indenting support: OP Line list entry made by the VHN/SN is consisting the drugs dispensed to the beneficiaries. The same is used for arriving the drug requirement of the UHC HSCs.
• Clinical audit by the Medical Officers for supporting protocol adherence and the better data quality.
• Health staff can download the line list and generate the disease wise morbidity and follow up plan. Automated OP report is generated in the Portal. Health staff’s contribution is to make the OP entry of walk-ins seen at the HWC.

Population based outcomes:

• HWC level MLHP can able to understand, among the population (5,000) how many are diabetic, hypertension.

Scalability

• The UHC IT Platform is designed for horizontal and vertical expansion, aligned in line with data requirements of Ayushman Bharat for integration.
• The Platform is hosted to cater 10 crore individual records, 5 lakh geographical units, 12 thousand concurrent users. Presently, the usage is 6.6 crore individual records, 2.5 lakh geographical units and 2 thousand concurrent users. The same platform can handle the HWC data for next 5 years at the current capacity.

Implementation Partners (If any)

State Health Department is the implementing agency of UHC IT Platform.

Financial Implications

Universal Health Coverage IT platform has been established by incurring Rs. 44,74,075.62. Inhouse contributions like training, baseline database creation, internet connectivity, hardware, mentoring are strengthening the Platform.

Source : We Care Coffee Table Book - Good, Replicable and Innovative Practices 2019