Guwahati, March 15: The National Health Mission, in association with Piramal Swasthya, a healthcare NGO, is developing a search engine on integrated electronic medical records (EMR) based on entries of beneficiaries who availed of primary health care.

The search engine is being developed to form a database of medical records of the beneficiaries to predict the prevalence of certain diseases in particular places.

"The search engine will be a technology platform that will integrate all the medical inputs from the beneficiaries availing primary healthcare. In other parts of the country, the beneficiary's medical records will be linked with their Aadhaar number, but the software will be designed according to the availability of documents in each state. Since in Assam, the Aadhaar work has not started yet, we will proceed by allotting each beneficiary a unique identification number," Vishal Phanse, CEO of Piramal Swasthya, told reporters here today.

"This will help us to compile a database of diseases, using which we will be able to predict the prevalence of certain diseases at certain places. Hopefully, by the end of this year we will be able to put this system in place," Phanse said.

"The entire integrated EMR system will be implemented on the central and state levels. The designing part is already complete. After the system is in motion at the central level, it will be customised according to the needs of the states. It will be first launched in Delhi, hopefully very soon," he said.

Phanse said while rolling out the system, high priority will be given to Assam because of propensity of certain diseases at certain places.

This is the first integrated medical record system for primary health sector. "There are systems for secondary and tertiary health sectors in developing countries as hospital management system. But to set health parameters of any state, we have to focus on the primary stage. It will help in early detection of diseases, and help prevent them," Phanse said.

Piramal Swasthya, through several projects in association with the NHM, has provided nearly two crore citizen health consultations and services for vulnerable and remote communities," he added.