Health information systems and healthcare practices in Sri Lanka largely rely on manual procedures where lot of paper work is involved. This is time consuming and often complicates handling. At present, regardless of government or private, patients usually have to visit hospitals and stay in queues to obtain a channel number and consult a doctor. This is very inconvenient and lead to frustration. Furthermore, it is also difficult for the hospital staff to proceed with healthcare services, especially during peak hours, as each patient needs individual attention. The administrative costs of hospitals are also high due to heavy manual administrative procedures. Therefore, many inventors are focusing on e-Health devices (i.e., self-service kiosks) as a solution to these problems.
East Link Engineering Company (Pvt) Ltd. with financial support from NSF has invented an e-Health solution, “e-Health KIOSK”, to address these problems prevailing in the Sri Lankan healthcare industry also contributing to Green Economy.
“e-Health KIOSK” automates routine administrative activities of Sri Lankan healthcare services starting from patient check-in, doctor consultations through delivering prescriptions. It is an interactive self-service system designed for public use to obtain information on channeling, OPD, clinics including specialists care services, doctor visits, consultation hours, charges, etc without queuing thus, improving the quality of service and patient satisfaction.
The e-Health KIOSK can be further developed to a level where a patient can make payments for channeling, pharmacy and obtaining test reports. e-Health KIOSK also provides significant advantages to hospitals by reducing overhead costs and staff time, increasing efficiency in patient management. Quality of care & data management and safety is also enhanced with the use of this new device.
e-Health KIOSK has received a high demand from both government and private hospitals. East Link Engineering Company (Pvt) Ltd. developed two machines with the financial support from NSF and are deployed at Nawaloka Hospitals PLC and Colombo National Hospital. The Scientific Officers of the NSF played a vital role throughout the grant period shaping up various aspects particularly through facilitating technical support and expertise to complete the project successfully in a timely manner.