Quick OPD service now possible under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

NEW DELHI: The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is undertaking a pilot for faster OPD registration service at the new OPD block of Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) and Smt. Sucheta Kriplani Hospital (SSKH) in New Delhi, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.

This service allows old as well as new patients to simply scan a QR Code and share their demographic details like name, father name, age, gender, address, mobile number etc. with the hospital, as per the press statement by the Ministry.

This helps to reduce the time taken at the OPD registration counter, provides accurate data in the hospital record and, most importantly, avoids the wait in the long queues. The service is planned to be extended to other health facilities and departments soon, added the statement.

The QR Code-based OPD registration service allows the patients to scan the hospital's unique QR Code with their mobile phone (using phone camera/scanner/ABHA App/Arogya Setu App/or any other ABDM enabled App) and share their profile details with the hospital. Once the profile is shared, the hospital provides a token number (queue number).

The token generated is sent as a notification to the patient's selected app and is also displayed on the screens placed at the OPD registration counters for the ease of patients. As per their token number, the patient can go to the registration counter and directly collect their outpatient slip (OP Slip) for doctor consultation as their details are already present at the registration counter.

Talking about the benefits of this service, Dr. R.S. Sharma, CEO, of NHA said - "Under the ABDM, we're using technology to simplify processes and make healthcare more efficient. The QR Code-based rapid OPD registration service is a step in this direction. It helped over 2200 patients avoid the hustle of long queues with considerably reduced waiting time and minimal time at the registration counter within 15 days of this pilot in LHMC & SSKH.

Direct profile sharing has also helped achieve a higher level of accuracy in patient records. Our team is working with other health facilities and departments to extend this service and help more patients."

The ABDM team worked closely with the team of LHMC/ SSKH to set up the QR Code-based faster registration service for their OPD block. Appropriate messaging and kiosk were put up to significantly reduce the waiting time for patients. Further, to assist the patients, support personnel were also posted to help them understand the steps and benefits of using this service.

The team also helped the patients create their Ayushman Bharat Health Account or ABHA numbers that shall help them in digitizing their health records. These services will now be extended to more health facilities like hospitals, clinics, diagnostic labs etc. to help patients save time and effort.