Kerala’s health status at the click of a mouse

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 23 (IANS) The medical status of residents of Kerala will soon be available at the click of a mouse, the state Health Minister said here on Monday.

Health Minister K.K. Shailaja said this will be done in two phases. The first phase of creating a date base in seven of the 14 districts will take two years to complete.

"This is the first of its kind in the country. The programme will be launched here on Wednesday by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Public health workers will also be present and details will be filled in using a tablet computer," Shailaja said.

Once the details are fed into the central data base, each time a person arrives in any of the state-run hospitals or clinics, the entire health history of the person will be available to the medical professionals at the click of a mouse.

"Each time a person meets a state government doctor, all the medical records of the person will be available. This will also be linked to the laboratories," he added.

The Rs 96 crore project is being implemented with financial support from the Centre that has put in Rs 87 crore, with the rest contributed by the state government.

State Health Secretary Rajiv Sadanandan said this facility for now is being made available to the state-run hospitals only.

"We are not including the private health care sector in this project at the moment. There need be no fears that the health data of the people will be misused. The data will be stored in the state data centre.

The state needs to know the health status of its citizens. Everything is being done in the most transparent manner," added Sadanandan.