After almost two years since it was first announced by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), the revolutionary Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) has been shut down in several districts of the province as a result of poor management and incompetence.
According to a Twitter thread shared by former PITB chairman Dr. Umar Saif, HIMS has been shut down in different districts across Punjab. Apparently, the reason behind its termination is non-payment of the company, which points to gross negligence and incompetence committed by the responsible authorities.
HIMS was launched by PITB back in April 2019 to provide state-of-the-art medical facilities to one million Punjab Employees Social Security Institute (PESSI) workers and their family members. Implemented in 17 government hospitals across the province, HIMS was used to digitalize the health system of Punjab, including patients’ registration, prescriptions, reports, and more.
Prescription Management, Medicine Inventory Management and Blood Bank are some of the major features of this management system. Other key features of this information system include Patient Assessment, Queue Management, Outpatient Inpatient, Lab and Pharmacy, Medicine Inventory Management, Fixed Assets, HR Management System, Finance & Accounts, and Reporting Engine.
The first hospital to get this information management system was Rahmatul Lil Alameen Institute of Cardiology Social Security Hospital in Lahore.
In the districts in which HIMS has been shut down, paper records and stacked registers are going to be the norm again, which will naturally result in a drop in effectiveness and productivity.
“This is very sad to read. It took a gigantic amount of effort to revamp Punjab’s small hospitals and automate them using this hospital MIS. Hope they fix it soon,” said Dr. Saif in his post.
