Transforming Healthcare: Digitalization of India’s Hospital Services by E-Hospital

E-Hospital is a cloud-based hospital management information system (HMIS) that aims to improve the delivery of healthcare services to citizens. It is developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) as part of the Digital India initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. This initiative has several objectives. First of all, E-Hospital offers a unified digital platform for communication between physicians, hospitals, and patients. Second, It provides an online patient portal which features services like online appointment booking, lab report access, and blood availability details. Third, It offers hospitals specialised technical assistance through specialised call centres and helpdesk. Finally, It is a built-on cloud architecture which can administer several hospitals at once. It incorporates clinical, administrative, financial, and insurance-related tasks and covers the full OPD/IPD treatment cycle.

The number of on-boarded hospitals shows a general upward trend, with some fluctuations. Starting from 6 hospitals in 2015-16, it peaked at 1043 in 2022-23, before slightly decreasing to 767 in 2023-24. This overall growth indicates a substantial push towards digital integration in India’s healthcare system, potentially improving the efficiency and accessibility of health services. This exponential growth suggests a rapid adoption of digital health records and electronic transactions, which could significantly streamline hospital operations and improve patient care.

The number of ORS (Online Registration System) enabled hospitals has also grown, albeit with some fluctuations. Starting at 39 in 2015-16, it reached a peak of 565 in 2023-24. This trend indicates an overall increase in hospitals offering online registration services, although the fluctuations suggest there might have been challenges in maintaining or expanding this system consistently.

Fig: 1

ORS appointments have shown remarkable growth, reflecting increased patient adoption of online booking systems. From just 118,952 appointments in 2015-16, the number rose to a peak of over 8,830,876 in 2023-24. However, there’s a noticeable drop in growth rate in 2020-21 (possibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting regular hospital visits), followed by a recovery and another peak of about 7,193,180 in 2022-23. The figure for 2023-24 appears again unusually low (fig: 1).

Overall, this data illustrates India’s substantial progress in digitalizing its healthcare system. The massive increase in e-hospital transactions and ORS appointments over the years suggests a transformative shift towards digital health management. This transition likely improves efficiency, reduces paperwork, and enhances the patient experience by offering more convenient ways to interact with healthcare services. However, the fluctuations in some metrics, particularly in recent years, may indicate ongoing challenges in implementation or adoption, possibly influenced by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic or varying levels of digital literacy across different regions of India.

References

About Author:

Pankaj Chowdhury is a former Research Assistant at the International Economic Association. He holds a Master’s degree in Demography & Biostatistics from the International Institute for Population Sciences and a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Visva-Bharati University. His primary research interests focus on exploring new dimensions of in computational social science and digital demography.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of 360 Analytika.

Acknowledgement: The author extends his gratitude to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for providing data support.

This article is posted by Sahil Shekh, Editor-in-Chief at 360 Analytika.