Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and District Administration are implementing a centralised hospital bed management system for displaying accurate information on the dashboard about the availability of hospital beds in all dedicated private and government COVID-19 hospitals. As a result, patients and their relatives can get precise information and will have the option of getting COVID-19 treatment in a government or private hospital.
At present, there is a discrepancy between the numbers displayed on the dashboard and actual availability of hospital beds, especially oxygen, ventilator and Intensive Care Unit beds at the private hospitals. The district administration has put all blame on the 'lag of data entry' by private hospital staff for this mismatch in numbers.
Also, the numbers provided by the Pune district administration and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) related to the total number of COVID-19 cases in Pune district do not match. Officials attributed this misreporting to 'communication problem' on part of the private hospitals in the city.
Pune Divisional Commissioner Dr Deepak Mhaisekar said, "The centralised bed management system will incorporate all private and government hospitals in the district areas along with Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad cities. Patients or their relatives will be offered an option of choosing a hospital of their choice for getting treatment on COVID-19."
Special Officer Saurabh Rao said, "The integration process for 15 ward offices of PMC and 8 ward offices of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has been started and will be over in three to four days. The coordinated efforts will eliminate the time-consuming process of finding a vacant hospital bed in any private or government hospital. Especially during the night hours, if any patient needs a hospital bed he can immediately be provided one."
Rubal Agrawal, Additional Municipal Corporation, PMC said, "The new software-based system will be operational within seven days. It will display not only the availability of beds but also the treatment details of a patient occupying a hospital bed, details of the doctor's visit to the patient etc. This will prevent any incident of allotting a hospital bed to any patient without informing the administration."
