Nalanda Medical College and Hospital and Patna Medical College and Hospital

A click can get you registered for outpatient department facilities at the two state-run hospitals in Patna.

Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) would soon follow the footsteps of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences-Patna by launching online registration facility for their outpatient departments.

Chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi launched the service at NMCH on August 16. The PMCH would roll out the facility around the end of August.

Anil Kumar, the deputy secretary of the health department, said: “A private firm has been asked to make a software that would be used for the online registration for the outpatient departments of PMCH and NMCH. We have asked the firm to make the software and only when it runs successfully, we would pay them.”

The online registration system at PMCH and NMCH would be, however, a little different from that at AIIMS-Patna.

“People going for the online registration at AIIMS-Patna need to download an application on their Android mobiles from the hospital’s website — www.aiimspatna.org. So only those who have Android phones can avail the service. The reach of Android phones is miniscule. At PMCH and NMCH, the online registration facility would be dedicated to the common man,” he said. According to Anil Kumar, people would be able to get the online registration done from any computer, laptop or Internet-enabled cellphones.

“To get the online registration done for consultation at outpatient department of PMCH and NMCH, people would not need Android- driven mobile phones,” said a health department official.

He said they would have to work out on its plan more elaborately.

“The reason being that the health department had earlier failed to launch a similar facility at the district hospitals and primary health centres,” he said.

On February 27, the department had launched the online registration facility in district hospitals and primary health centres for availing outpatient services. Then chief minister Nitish Kumar had inaugurated the facility at Samvad Bhavan. It was said that one has to visit the website — health.bih.nic.in — to get the online registration done. At present, no one can get registered online to avail the outpatient services in the government-run district hospitals and primary health centres.

A source said the state health society, which runs under the health department, had developed an in-house software to execute the plan and had spent Rs 1.5 crore on the facility. But at present, nothing as such has been done.

The in-house software only generates receipts, which allow patients to consult doctors at the outpatient department and also get the various tests done at the health facility concerned. According to the norm, doctors of the district hospitals and primary health centres as well as the officials manning the pathological services have to sign the receipt, which is a proof that the particular doctor or the official was present at the time of the patient’s visit.