Jammu and Kashmir recently secured the second position across the country in generating Scan and Share search OPD tokens for August. This accomplishment marks a new era of queue-less registration for search OPD visits in healthcare institutions across Jammu and Kashmir.
The Scan and Share queue-less registration process has taken new heights under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission J&K and is turning out to be a game changer for ease of OPD registration for patients in the healthcare institutions of J&K.
This facility was rolled out in April 2023 and extended to 71 healthcare institutions across J&K. According to officials trained manpower was deployed for facilitating on-ground human resource and hand holding of patients for availing this queue less digital service.
General public approaching the hospitals have hugely appreciated the initiative which has resulted in penetration of around 70-90% conversion from physical to digital mode.
It has not only saved the time of patients and their attendants at the long queues at the hospital but also marginalized the demographic errors of the patients during their registration. A paperless record of health shall be maintained for all the citizens which shall be accessible to stake holders at the consent of patient. In J&K the healthcare institutions have generated 7,92,641 tokens in a short span of 4 months’ time, according to official data.
Scan and Share is changing the game, making patient registration more convenient and patient-focused.
There are also some challenges in the online search OPD registration process. To start with, patients are required to physically visit the healthcare facility to obtain a Q-Scan code, making online registration from home difficult. Once it is generated, the code remains valid for half an hour, during which patients must pay the OPD fee at cash counters which are more often than not very crowded. The patient is to collect pre-printed OPD slips for their respective departments and it as such defeats the purpose of the Scan and Share Queue Management system. To get the system better and enable remote consultations and other services, it is important to remove the need for physical queuing.
An online payment option should be available and the patients should be able to pay their search OPD fees digitally which will save the time against waiting at cash counters.
