Digital health revolution in state hospitals
Life and money savers in the form of docs armed with laptops; smoother registrations; no queues and no paper; and instant X-rays
Asilent revolution is taking place ever so quietly not on the streets of Sri Lanka but within its hospitals. How this revolution, using the click of a button, is touching and saving the lives of the humblest of men, women and children and also saving funds for a cash-strapped country was seen at the Castle Street Hospital for Women in Borella just last week.
One of the numerous ‘beneficiaries’ of this revolution is a tiny three-day-old boy from Badalgama, born prematurely at 32 weeks ( usually the gestation period is 38-40 weeks) and transferred to the Castle Street Hospital’s Neonatal Unit, weighing a mere 1.77kg.
Consu ltant Neonatologist Dr. L. P. C. Saman Kumara has ordered an urgent X-ray, as the baby is having breathing difficulties and we see him looking at the films not on the lit board that is usually stuck on a wall far away from the patients but on a tab, just by the side of the incubator of the baby.
We have seen the radiology staff moving the X-ray equipment close to the incubator, inserting a cassette and taking the X-ray, as we are told that the cassette is being used to convert the X-ray into a digital image.
Earlier the process would have entailed the doctors having to fill a form requesting an X-ray, the technicians coming to the ward, taking the X-ray and returning to the Radiology Department to carry out the chemical processes, drying the film and then requesting collection of it from their department.
Precious time – seconds and minutes between life and death.
The importance of time is reiterated by Dr. Kumara who says that in the past it took about 30 to 45 minutes for the X-ray process to take place.