Computer Section

With advent of Information Technology, the Institute visualized the requirement  of creation of computer facilities division in the Institute. Therefore , to harness the potential of Information Technology, Computer Section was incepted by the Institute in the year of 1992. Computer sections has been mandated to

• Attain self-reliance for conception and deployment of Information technology.
• Create estate-of-Art IT infrastructure as central resource enabling the Institute to automate   the   essential functions, workflow of all the functional areas of Institute. 
• Meet the need of the Institute  to  create IT savvy  manpower by  training  the Staff, faculty and students etc.  in the use of information technology.
• Provide tutor to teach  ‘Computer Science & its applications’ as subject introduced in various B.Sc level courses in  the Institute.

Computer Section has been involved in taking various IT initiative in the Institute since its inception. With the overall growth of the Institute, the workload  of the section has increased manifolds since then. Now, Computer Section looks after deployment of  Information Technology infrastructure, implementation of  Hospital Information System , maintenance of web portal http://pgimer.edu.in, internet and e-mail services for students, Staff and faculty members ,services and support  to all department/sections of the Institute in  respect  of  hardware, software, teaching B.Sc and MD/MS/MCh/DM courses, etc. and training staff/Faculty  members. Computer  Section also  undertook the  work of  development of  Application Software  for  different  departments  and  sections.  Computer section has also played the facilitating role for  work of the software development from outside agency. Presently computer section is involved in implementation   of   22 Software modules of  the  Hospital  Information System, dissemination  of  internet connectivity , E-mail   to   officers  and  Faculty members of the Institute. Computer  is  also  contributing  in  the  process  of  acquisition  of the  PACS-RIS  system. In  addition to  this  computer  section will also  play  key  role  in  integration  of  PACS-RIS  system with Hospital Information  System.      

Achievements:

1.     Software Development ,Implementation and Post implementation Support

Computer Section has been maintaining (development/customization) following Software:

• Payroll , GPF, Income tax from 16 of  Accounts Branch
• Patient Information System at APC,ENT, Plastic surgery wards;
• File tracking System   Establishment and DDA office; 
• Telephone billreimbursement generation in Medical Superintendent Office.

2.     Conceptualization of Comprehensive project of Computerization of the Institute.

While envisaging   about investing in information technology, road map of IT strategy was laid out by the Institute in year 2002. PGIMER thought of experimenting of having a comprehensive system for all the important departments, patients’ centric services and employees on such a large scale. The System Requirement Study was conducted in the year 2003.C-DAC was entrusted to execute work of Computerization on turnkey basis in year 2006-07. The Institute has derived significant benefit by defining its complete IT strategy and its phase wise implementation

• Caters to the information needs of multiple user groups such as individuals, patients, doctors, clinics, hospitals, corporate firms, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, students, etc.
• Brings interactivity between common interest groups and create communities of care (e.g., Patients with similar conditions / interests, doctors sharing knowledge in treating cases and in the field of Research).
• Networks the  Health Care Delivery System of the Institute
• Sets Standards of Information Exchange

Comprehensive proposal of  the  computerization  of the Institute  was prepared and  got  approved from Ministry  of Health & Family welfare and  Ministry  of  Finance. Under computerization

3.     Facilitating  CMEs, Conferences, Presentations and Other  events of the Institute:

Computer Section  has been  instrumental  in acquiring providing internet  connectivity, computer facility(training lab and manpower)  for  varied  requirement  of  different  departments  of the  Institute. Computer section has been deputing 

1. Facilitating  Recruitment Processes :
2. E-recruitment process was  envisaged  by the  computer  section  and  application  software  got  developed  and  implemented  by computer section. Moreover, computer section has  been  extending  support  to  recruitment cell  and  any other  department  for  conducting  typing  speed test  at   training  lab  of the  computer  section.

5.     e-procurement  process  of the  Institute:

6.     Setting Up  Training Facility and   Training Program:

7. Teaching of  B.Sc and MD/MS students :

8.      Implementation of Computerization Project :Expression of Interest (EOI) was published on January 2005, then tenders were floated and the work of Hospital computerization was awarded to M/S CDAC , Noida on turnkey basis in March 2007. This is a novelproject, no other hospital in India has such an integrated software and setup as is there in PGIMER, Chandigarh now.

The Institute has created  the state of art  IT   infrastructure  comprising  of  Main Data Centre,  Hosting High end servers, SAN, campus wide  local area network(with 3336 I/Os)  with  OFC as  backbone. IT infrastructure being used for implementation of   Hospital Information System (HIS):  The HIS is browser based Application software having twenty modules related to Electronic Patient Record (EPR), Clinical Services and hospital administration etc. Modules are broadly classified in three categories namely Clinical Services, Support Services and Back office services. The   modules are being implemented in phased manners based on the   order of the priority of respective module. List of modules   is as under:  

These modules have been implemented after Business processes re-engineering in order to make the system perform optimally.

• About 8000 patients are being registered through this system in various OPDs of the Institute.
• Nursing Staff is offloaded from preparing manual statistics of Patient’s Admission, Discharge, Deaths for about daily intake of a 250 admissions and 225 discharges. Thus, the present scenario has become favorable for nursing staff to focus on patient care leading better care as system is compiling the reports for the Central Registration department

• Salary preparation and disbursement of salary, pension , GPF ,allowance and arrears’ to about 6200 in service  employees and 2000 pensioners is being done through the system.
• As number of posts including Faculty, SR/ JR, Nursing/ Paramedical Staff/ other support Staff are filled round the year. Previously it use to take around 1.5 to 2 years in case of complete processing of application till their final result in case of Nursing staff. Around 11750 online application have been processed for online examination. Implementation of e-recruitment enabled on line application submission, the time take to process the same reduced drastically to 6 months. The institute has already  processed around 55,000 application through E-Recruitment has been used for  following number/categories of Staff :

• Due to interfacing of Auto-Analyzers in various Labs, the data is directly being picked from the auto-analyzers to our system and thereby has reduced the chances of data entry. Around 1000-1500 samples are collected and processed on daily basis.
• Bar-code readers are to be used in the Labs to read the sample number

 Innovation to deploy IT infrastructure:

Keeping in mind the size of our Institute and the number of patients visiting various department of PGIMER to seek the healthcare, the switching over to a new computerized system was a daunting task. It was decided that various modules be implemented in a phased manner depending upon their on basis or urgency/priority. PGIMER adopts flexible and innovative problem solving techniques in order to tackle the challenges of implementation of IT solution in heterogeneous working environment (doctors, nurses, technicians, administrator etc.)  of Institute.

• Parameterized Dashboards have been made available in the system for higher authorities e.g. Director, Dean, Medical Superintendent, DDA, Head of the Departments etc as a part of Decision Support
• Process re-engineering: Automatic   scheduling of the patients being registered (New/Old) on real time basis depending upon the number Doctors sitting/available in the specific OPD.    
• Token system: To save patients from hassles of standing in long queues for getting registered token system has been introduced. Patient after obtaining token can relax in waiting area and on display of the  his/her token number will come to window for getting registered.  
• Bar coded Samples : Use of  bar code  labels reduces  the  processing  time  for each sample  at  every stage right from  sample collection processing  in the lab  and publication of reports.
• Provision for Machine Interface to lab investigation module for transferring results directly from machine to HIS which has resulted into a fast, efficient and error free lab reports
• HIS software has been designed keeping in mind the user convenience, so as to reduce the data entry effort and errors
• Integration with MSDG (Mobile Service Delivery Gateway) and email: SMS and email capabilities have been built into the system to reduce the patients’ visits, information to students about their results etc
• Deployment of customized module of HIS after due testing: The various modules of HIS are being customized on regular basis keeping in mind the dynamic changes, peculiar requirements. However, a mechanism has been devised to deploy the customized code on testing server before deploying it on the production server and versions are maintained to fall back on the more stable code incase anything goes wrong

Sustainability of Information Technology resources :

• 24x7 Facility Management Services (FMS) for registration of complaints related IT facilities (Hardare, Software,UPS,Networking etc.) Management of IT  facilities at Instiute is   broadly outlined as under    
• System Administration and Management
• Network Administration and Management
• Security Administration and Management
• HIS – Application Software Administration & Management
• User Support and Management

 New PROJECTS/ INITIATIVES IN PIPELINE

Apart from the above mentioned initiative, following initiatives are in pipeline to increase the efficiency of the system and reduction of errors:

• Integrated PACS for various departments of the Institute on a very large scale has been proposed to be implemented in the Institute.
• Dual Monitors for registration for checking and correcting data entry before final printing.

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