Medical file

Branded, hi-fi, multi-functional corporate hospitals use file system. It is the physical file cover which holds all the patient records, results, observations. If a patient request for a treatment, his/her file is retrieved from the record storage room and passed to concerned dept. Depending on many factors, this process of moving the file takes a happy 30mins to 60mins. Sometimes the staff have a happy hours of playing 'treasure hunt' in order to trace the file.

The patient need to wait in a lengthy queue in the dept for some doctor to analyze. Then n number of tests are expected. Each test will be greeted by a lengthy queue again .. no, ur relative cannot reserve a seat for you in the next test room. If the number of tests tend towards one, then there is a hope for getting treated on the same day.

The big, posh hospitals that charge $$$ follow a different process. They create a five star environment for their A-class patients and take care well.

However, the branded hospital handling middle and lower group of people adapt the same process of file system we saw earlier. I was puzzled to notice the same process in these hospitals. The real surprise was that, why is that a hospital never learn from the bottle necks observed in another hospital system? Atleast the later hospitals could have written smart software to handle the crowd and manage better. Why they didn't?

Suddenly it struck! .. the sales guys!!

This could have been the conversation between the hospital management and sales guys from a software company.

HM: we would like to have an efficient system that would smoothen the process. It should help us keep track of records and refer back easily in a secure manner.
SG: Sure, sir. We will be able to do that. It would take 8 months to develop (and hospital wil have test it), and cost approx 2 million rupees. On the other hand, we have an industry tested solution, which costs 0.3M and can be installed within 2 weeks.
HM: oh, I guess we will go for your solution.



Such primitive system not only punishes the patients who are in the last rung of the ladder; but also the staff, the doctors and the management. Instead of having a smooth process and channeling the crowd thru time management, the current system opens the gate for chaos.