Hyderabad: Apparently moved by the long queues of people at wellness centres, waiting patiently to meet doctors and collect their medicines, the Rajiv Aarogyasri Healthcare Trust (RAHCT) is working towards streamlining its operations. Some reports had pointed out shortage of drugs in wellness centres.
The wellness centres were inspected on Monday.
The government runs 12 wellness centres under the Employees and Journalists Health Scheme (EJHS). The outpatient inflow at these centres is around 1,800 with major footfall at Khairatabad, with 350 to 400 patients per day, Vanasthalipuram, Warangal and Karimnagar. A new centre at CHC Barkas is to be inaugurated soon.
The trust plans to digitalise records and bring in a paperless monitoring system that would make the lives of doctors and patients easier. At present, the wait times at the centres sometimes stretches to four hours.
“After the inspections, it was found that most of the patients come for various branded drugs that are not available in other stores. The patients along with their family members line up at the registration desk,” said trust CEO Uday Kumar. He said the appointments with doctors and placing of orders for drugs can be done online.
Secondly, the positioning of the pharmacist and the doctor can be realigned in such a way that patients who come only for procuring drugs are attended to separately, and those who want to meet the doctor can meet without much delay.
Also, digitilisation would help track the inventory of medicines in a more systematic manner and enable the pharmacist to place orders in advance, Uday Kumar said.
He said that the problems of management of patient inflow was highlighted by the doctors and pharmacists working in wellness centres and these innovations would help systematise these operations by removing the ‘traffic’ and make patient services flow smoothly.
On reports of the shortage of certain drugs, Uday Kumar said that some centres, such as the one at Khairatabad, function as dispensaries for patients at NIMS and other specialty hospitals, which increases the footfall at the centre. “Moreover, certain drugs are prescribed by the doctors may not be available in the same brand at times. However, other brands are available,” he explained.