Use AIIMS app to book appointments, check reports
By April, AIIMS is expected to integrate their UHID system with the UID provided by the government.
3 min read
IN a first for hospitals in India, AIIMS has launched a mobile application (app) for android phones where patients can book and cancel OPD appointments, and access their laboratory investigation reports. The app — the latest in a series of efforts by the institute to stagger the crowd in OPDs — has been developed by the institute’s IT department and National Informatics Centre (NIC), with independent software developers.
The beta version of the software app is already out, but only patients who have visited AIIMS at least once and have an existing patient identification provided by the hospital called the Unique Health Identification (UHID) can benefit so far.
“The final version will be launched in the next few weeks after correcting all the bug reports from the beta version.The UHID requirement will be removed to make it possible for anybody who may not have visited AIIMS before to create a UHID with the app and then carry on with the functions of the app. So effectively, patients will have to just visit the hospital to see the doctor,” said Dr Deepak Aggarwal, professor of neurosurgery and in-charge of the hospital’s IT cell.
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Patients can view their diagnostic reports online, access their health profile information and a directory of doctors and departments.
Private chains like Dr Lal Path Laboratories already have mobile based apps for patients to access reports online, and some private hospitals like Fortis and Max healthcare groups have similar apps for booking appointments in the pipeline.
Nikaash Puri, independent developer who has designed the AIIMS app, said it would also be made available on the i-Phone operating system in its final version.
“We have kept the interface as simple as possible, to keep it legible and clean. The immediate plan is to broaden the app by removing the UHID requirement, and then link it to Facebook or other social media platforms.” said Puri. He said that while the software is currently available only in English, it would be linked to Google Translate in the next three-four months to make it available in 12-15 languages.
“Patients come to AIIMS from all over the country, from different socio economic and educational backgrounds, and everybody has a phone these days. Since we are making this healthcare information available to them, we will try to provide it in their own language,” said Puri. He added that only two bugs have been identified in the beta version so far.
By April, AIIMS is also expected to integrate their UHID system with the UID provided by the government.
Meanwhile, patients who have never visited AIIMS and do not have UHIDs can book and cancel appointments on the hospital’s website also, under a new section called the patient portal. “Here, patients can also monitor in real time the waiting periods for OPD appointments, the number of OPD slots available for new and old patients for every department and doctor. This is an effort to make the OPD booking system more transparent, and is a feature we will extend to our app in upcoming updates,” said Dr Aggarwal.
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