Remote doctor consultations, Tele-med services in offing
Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Sept 1: In a notable stride towards enhancing patient convenience and streamlining healthcare service delivery, J&K has achieved the second position nationwide in the generation of Scan & Share OPD tokens in August.
Officials said that the Union Territory has outpaced Karnataka, generating an impressive tally of nearly 3 lakh tokens during August this year alone, heralding a new era of queue-less registration for outpatient department (OPD) visits at healthcare institutions across the region.
The innovative Scan & Share queue-less registration process, spearheaded by the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) in J&K, has experienced significant success since its inception in April 2023 with locally GMC, Baramulla and Rajouri performing exceptionally well.
“Implemented across 71 healthcare institutions in the UT, the initiative has proven to be a game-changer in simplifying the OPD registration process for patients,” the officials said.
According to the details shared by the officials, J&K generated nearly 3 lakh tokens in August, securing the second slot across the country, followed by Karnataka which has generated over 2.5 lakh OPD tokens through the ABHA-based Scan & Share. The State of Uttar Pradesh remains at the top with 5.86 lakh tokens generated during the same period.
The officials noted that trained personnel have been strategically deployed to facilitate on-ground assistance, ensuring seamless access to this digital service across J&K, while terming the response from the general public “overwhelmingly positive”, with people praising the Government’s forward-thinking approach.
Bhupinder Kumar, Secretary of the Health & Medical Education (H&ME) Department, told Excelsior that the primary goal of ABDM is to enhance healthcare access and efficiency through streamlined processes and digital records.
“We aim to ensure accessible and affordable healthcare for all individuals. In terms of healthcare accessibility, our focus is on streamlining queuing processes, efficiently managing medical records, and facilitating easy access to doctors, including pharmacy services. This represents the primary objective of the ABDM,” he said.
Dr. Shafqat Khan, Additional Director of ABDM J&K, stated that the mission’s innovations aim to improve patient access and streamline healthcare delivery.
“ABDM is paving the way to enhance patient access within hospitals while ensuring a responsible and transparent healthcare delivery system. Our goal is to alleviate the challenges of waiting in long queues at the OPD and carrying loads of paper records by transitioning to a digital format that can be conveniently stored on mobile phones,” he said.
It was further informed that the Scan & Share system is poised to bring even more transformative changes as it prepares to enable remote doctor consultations and telemedicine services.
“A paperless health record system will be established, maintaining longitudinal health records for all citizens. Access to these records will be granted to stakeholders with patient consent, ushering in a new era of healthcare collaboration,” they said.
The officials mentioned that the effort has yielded a conversion rate of approximately 70-90% from traditional physical registration to the digital mode, noting that by eliminating the need for patients to endure long queues, the digital intervention not only saves time but also minimizes the chances of demographic errors during the registration process.
Overall, as per the officials, since April of this year, J&K has generated 7,92,641 OPD tokens through Scan & Share, securing the number 3 slot across the country. Uttar Pradesh remains at the top with over 28 lakh tokens, and Karnataka is in the second position with over 16 lakh OPD tokens generated through Scan & Share Queue Management System.
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