Letter from JSS

[Daniel Pepper]

Dear all:

Please find herein an expression of thanks from Dr. Raman, a surgeon and one of the founding members of JSS.

Kind regards,
 Daniel


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Greetings from all of us at Jan Swasthya Sahyog!
 
We are really excited about the EMR project, which has brought several talented and dedicated people on a platform, and has the potential to spearhead a revolutionary change in the way medical information is currently handled, interpreted and used, both by the health care providers and the recipients of this care. The great strides that this work has been able to take is proof of what good teams can do in such short time periods.
 
If we look at the present scenario in the JSS Out Patient Department (OPD), with the limited manpower, we are overwhelmed by the workload. Many patients, whether they suffer from Tuberculosis, cancer, Rheumatic Heart Disease or whatever, drop out of treatment and fall through the net.  One look at the OPD registration room and one can make out the wealth of data we have to practice evidence based medicine. With proper digitization of this data we hope to be able to closely track our patients during treatment and follow up, see for ourselves the impact of different interventions, may be even look at cost vs benefit, keep patients better informed, help physicians in decision making and practice rational medicine, share information at different levels within the health care provisioning setup so as to improve knowledge, efficiency and morale of the staff, and many other benefits.
 
Even though the market abounds with EMRs of differing capabilities, most are cumbersome for physicians, and this remains a major bottleneck for their optimal usage. Doctors don’t have the time to see patients and also input data. The key to a successful medical record is therefore a user interface that simplifies data entry and does not become a burden for the doctor in terms of his or her work output.
 
For an organisation like JSS, where community health work goes hand in hand with hospital care, the different modules of this package can be integrated and the available information be used to the optimum benefit of the patient, and help further integrate the community processes with the hospital and health work. This could be a model that any other organisation working in Health could use. The USP of this software would be its friendliness with the users and the ease of use; no extra time than what is currently spent on records should be required of the physicians.
 
While we congratulate this team for its initiative, I also take this opportunity to express one major area of concern. This is with respect to the subsequent optimal maintenance, trouble-shooting and fine tuning of the software and hardware onsite over the long term. We sincerely hope this would be adequately addressed. To this end we would encourage as many team members to visit JSS.
 
Once again, wishing the entire team a great success!
 
Yours sincerely,
Dr Raman Kataria