Automation in Health Department
Situation
The Health Department of the Government of Sindh, provides healthcare facilities along with related services, such as health, education, research, immunization and others to the whole province through its offices in the districts using a staff of over 64,700 full time employees along with 22,576 Lady Health Workers (LHW’s). The healthcare is provided from Basic Health Units all the way up to tertiary care at the major hospitals in districts. In addition, the Department operates a number of dispensaries, teaching institutions and vertical programmes as well as personnel who go on a house-to-house basis to provide basic health facilities n urban and rural areas.
The Challenges
At the moment, all personnel information as well as office records are managed on paper. Similarly, the ordering and distribution of medicine is managed by separate automated systems, where available, and on paper, where not. There is a severe lack of automation at the central level which is creating a huge roadblock in the Department’s ability to function properly and manage its appreciably large workforce.
Benefits
With this system in place, not only would the Department bring in transparency to its processes, it would also have consolidated records available online on which to base future budgets on instead of having to rely on paper documents which introduce unnecessary delays and inaccuracies.