Implementing e–Upchaar: Hospital Management Information System for public health facilities in Haryana

Background and objective: There is a paucity of reliable hospital data and available information for planning and management of health services in India. Hence, the Government of Haryana launched e-Upchaar, a Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) in the public health facilities of the state. A study was conducted to give insight into the design, development and implementation of HMIS for public health facilities, capable of meeting futuristic health demands of Haryana state and the introduction of real-time reporting, data analytics for evidence-based rational decision making. Methods: A descriptive study (August-October 2019) was conducted in the state of Haryana, India on implementation of HMIS (2015-2019). Desk reviews and interviews were conducted and the data from back-end of the application was explored. Integration of an external application by the Government of India’s Ministry of Health initiative ‘Mera Aspataal’ with e-Upchaar was also reviewed. The data extracted from the database was saved in Excel 2010 for descriptive analysis. Results: A unique health ID (UHID) was created for every patient registered in e-Upchaar. Patients (80 lakhs) and EMRs (70 lakhs) created untill 2019. Registration time (1 minute), follow up visits (15 sec), billing (2 minutes) and diagnostic reports’ availability on the same day. This resulted in a significant reduction in operational costs; savings due to non-printing of X-ray films in 22 facilities amounted to 13 million INR. Conclusion: e-Upchaar is playing a pivotal role towards achieving the quality standards for effective health care delivery in Haryana. It has improved transparency and integrity in hospital operations through accurate inventory management; and brought improvement in patients’ experience.