Mumbai:
With the rising number of foreign patients, the Tata Memorial Hospital has decided to go online to ensure patients get the optimum care. "We have been registering international and national patients online. But now, we have started checking online medical reports before asking the patient to come down. The doctor goes through the report and then decides whether the person actually needs to come to the hospital," said SH Jafri, senior PRO, Tata Memorial Hospital.
This year, the hospital had more than 400 foreign patients. While last year it registered 400 patients, in 2008 it had 368. "The online registration and consultation have ensured that the patients save money and time. We send them the approval letter to help them to get medical visa too," added Jafri.
Apart from registering and consulting patients online, the hospital is all set to introduce cashless payment option. "We will be giving our patients an identity card and pin number at the time of registration which can be used by the patient to make payment. The patient need not carry cash," said Dr HKV Narayan, medical superintendent of the hospital.
The hospital has also developed an e-system which will allow patients from around the world to send their tissue samples that are suspected to be cancerous to the hospital for medical advice.
"Earlier, it used to take 15 days or more for people to send their tissue samples for examination and us to reply on it. We intend to make the entire procedure online and reduce the paper work," added Dr Narayan.
A detailed examination of the tissue samples include an array of test which takes almost seven days to process. Thus, even if a patient comes to the hospital, he has to wait for the reports to come and seek medical advice from our doctors. Since 2009, the hospital has processed around 27,100 samples.
"With the internet enabled registration and processing patients will be able to get second opinions easily. Once the reports are generated, the referring doctor and the patient can be intimated by the way of an email followed by a physical delivery of the reports making life easier for them," said Dr Narayan.
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