The Union Health Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan recently launched the Integrated Health Information Platform. According to the Ministry of Health, India is the first country to adopt such an advanced surveillance system.
The integrated health information platform will be operated under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. IDSP was launched in 2004 with the support of the World Bank. The main objective of this program is to quickly detect and respond to disease outbreaks.
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This platform is a state-of-the-art and updated form of the current ISDP. With this, India has become the first country in the world to adopt such a sophisticated system for monitoring diseases. While only 18 diseases were monitored under the old program, in the new platform, 33 diseases have been monitored. Through this system, data about diseases will be available in a digital form immediately. Through this platform, any outbreak investigation related activities can be started and monitored electronically.
The objective of this platform is to strengthen disease surveillance in the country. This is to be achieved by establishing a decentralized state-based surveillance system for epidemic diseases.
Features of this platform
The key features of this platform are real-time data reporting, geo-tagging of health facilities, etc. through the use of mobile applications. The platform aims to provide better care and maintain confidential health data.
This platform will keep information about the spread of the disease in different districts of the country. This information will be collected through ASHA workers and ANM.
How the data will be collected and collated?
Each health worker will be provided with a form S, P and L.The grassroots workers involved in this survey will be provided with an S-form. They will help in collecting information about the prevalence of the disease. Whereas,doctors will be given a P-Form. Through this form, doctors will collect the name, address, contact number of the patient along with their diagnosis. At last, Laboratory personnel will be provided with L-form. Through this form, they will collect details of the pathological examination.
Significance
Now every small and big health issues will be monitored closely by the high officials of the Health Department. The Health Department will monitor cases of every minor disease. The health worker will have to register every small and big case on this platform. If the disease is spreading in any area, then it can be contained within time.
The health department started training
Health Department has started training to activate employees on the IHI platform. However, this training had to be stopped for a few days in view of increasing cases of corona. The health department has provided tabs to the health workers. Now, these employees will have to stand on the spot and update the information of the person or family affected by the disease. The department will have to share the employee with the location of that area, so that if other similar cases arise in that area, then the department can become active immediately.