Dr Prashant Paunipagar, Dean ESIC Medical College, Gulbarga spoke on how digital technologies can be implemented to foster good governance in public health and how this will act as a great contributor to the vision of the Digital India goal. Dr Paunipagar began by explaining what good governance truly means in healthcare. “Good governance is concerned with deliverance of sound economy and developmental policies in a factual manner to the people,” he said.
He then spoke on the digital technologies utilised at ESCI. He informed that at ESCI hospitals, they use the following digital technologies to enhance patient care, whats app, official website to maintain transparency, e mail services, Dhanvantri portal, hands on training and more which gives impetus to their governance activity. He further gave an example of how they created a system backed by digital technologies at their Gulbarga ESCI hospital and how they achieved excellent outcomes out of this project.
Dr Paunipagar disclosed that they have created some official Whatsapp group for immediate communications. One among these is the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan group, which keeps a constant information flow on the updates on cleanliness and hygiene related communication among the college and hospital staff that helps to maintain the highest levels of cleanliness.
Additionally, the ESIC website is also very dynamic and provides information on the tender process, recruitment details, academic details, administrative details and more. The Dhanvantri portal system is a unique online system that monitors every action within the hospital right from patient entry to its recovery process. “Upgrading our college and hospital system with digital technologies have helped us in many ways. It has enhanced good governance within our hospitals and helped us provide better care to our patients. Our vision to is digitalise our data system and increase operational excellence,” he summed up.