BMC turns to JJ hospital to learn how to convince its own doctors

The civic body hopes to learn some lessons from the government-run JJ Hospital, on how to convince doctors from its own hospitals, to use the software for the Health Management Information System (HMIS).

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) Rs 100-crore project - HMIS - hasn't seen the light of day even after six years, because of lack of cooperation between the IT and medical departments in civic-run hospitals. While doctors at civic hospitals are refusing to update data on the centralised software, the same project has been successfully implemented at JJ Hospital.

"The project was supposed to start at Nair hospital. We trained medical staffers, but they are now refusing to upload data on the software. They claim that it is not their job and have told us to hire data operators. We sent a team to JJ Hospital to find how they have been doing it for four years," said a senior official from BMC's health department. HMIS helps keep the data centralised through an online system. It stores the medical reports of patients and keeps track of medicine storage in each hospital to curb shortage.

After BMC officials visited JJ hospital, they submitted their report to Additional Commissioner Idzes Kundan. It clearly states that the medicos in the hospital themselves register the data in the system. Ravi Raja, leader of the opposition, alleged that due to vested interests, many people are purposely delaying the process. "If this system is implemented, all the loopholes will be revealed. That's why people are making excuses to delay it. BMC commissioner (Ajoy Mehta) held a meeting with us. He is trying his best to start it within two months."

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