What is the purpose behind developing software like Bahmani and how is it different from other open source medical records systems?
Currently, in the rural healthcare ecosystem, the doctor-patient ratio is relatively low and there is a lack of high quality digital systems for patient and health record management to help healthcare providers be flexible and adaptable in terms of their use, management of care and operations. To address this concern, Thoughtworks envisioned and developed Bahm – a free and open source hospital information management system (HIMS), to help healthcare providers with appropriate digital intervention in low-resource clinics and hospitals – health records, lab, pharmacy, envelope. To do. , Radiology, analytics etc. The platform provides digital tools for healthcare providers to better manage health records and enable better quality of work.
The initiative was aimed at revolutionizing patient care and addressing global healthcare challenges in less resource areas. Bahmni was conceived as a customized user-friendly, automated, effective care system to provide a better medical information system for patients in rural clinics with limited bandwidth and infrastructure.
Our technologists bring successful, field-tested techniques and ideas for open source solutions from around the world. The platform also allows for unique workflows and procedures based on the needs of each hospital. We support and develop the platform that countries and implementers use to create customized EMR systems in response to ground needs. Its intuitive design is easy to use at point-of-care, requiring minimal training. It can be operated on a hospital site, does not require reliance on the Internet and can be used on a variety of devices, including tablets and laptops, making it suitable and adaptable to the infrastructure.
What changes have been made in the hospitals where open source medical record system has been implemented?
Bahmani’s end users are usually doctors, specialists, nurses, clinical and non-clinical staff in hospitals located in remote parts of the world, most of whom rarely use technology in their daily lives. This digital division is also among the highly educated people like doctors. Bahmni takes careful steps to eliminate this segmentation, including features and enhancements designed with these users in mind.
The biggest challenge for public health management is the unavailability of data at the right time to perform any analysis. Bahmni manages patient charts throughout care services and helps healthcare providers monitor patients’ health and progress. Doctors have instant access to a patient’s entire history, simply by entering their patient ID system. Additionally, they can use Bahmni’s display controls to scan information quickly and efficiently. The Report Generation module allows hospital administrators to generate reports based on duration, diseases, format, etc. The platform enables providers to make quick decisions about disease breakouts, affected areas and the treatment required for it. By digitizing and significantly simplifying the process of laboratory, radiology, IPD, etc., the platform enables a holistic view of the patient’s history and routes. The platform also enables digital lab records which reduces errors and saves time. In addition to the platform that is tackling major challenges, there are other specialized features such as observation forms and treatment flows that help users manage a sea of patients on a daily basis.
Similarly, data produced by hospitals is also of great use to researchers. Clinical, diagnostic and patient management information are all important for effective patient care. The information that Bahmani makes accessible helps healthcare providers improve the efficiency and quality of patient care, reduce the margin of error in clinical diagnosis, and advocate for public health policies in rural areas.
You can tell in detail about how the model helps in the decision support system for doctors in the effectiveness of medicine. Also, do you have any plans to create specialized analysis modules on infectious and non-communicable diseases?
Bahmani has addons for various built-in mechanisms and decision support systems. For MDR-TB, it was the tool of choice for worldwide multi-year clinical research, study, tracking, and analysis of drug efficacy. The decision integrates with the WHO Hearts initiative for projects with support system, CVD risk assessment and care planning. In the past, Bahmani has created OSS Analytics addons for hypertension, diabetes. The disease group seems to draw on the capabilities and knowledge of the simple support system ecosystem used for specialized analytics support when trying to learn from such integration. In many respects, Bahmani has integrated and benefited with national level programs / systems – e.g. Integration with DHIS2 on ADX. It often acts as a “source of information” and provides numerous ways to expand and plug in the ecosystem. At the same time, Bahman enables the provider with a number of tooling, learning and meta models that providers can take advantage of. In the near future, Bahm hopes to come out with specialized starter kits containing curated metadata, content, templates and analytics and reports.
Bahmani Ayushman is integrated with Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). How will it help and develop health services in rural areas?
AYUSHMAN BHARAT DIGITAL MISSION (ABDM) is at the forefront of integrating the country’s digital health infrastructure and integrating digital health solutions of hospitals across the country. Under the ABDM ecosystem, patients can create their unique identification ID, known as ABDH ID, through which they can link and access their medical records, reducing the burden of carrying physical documents. Bahmni is ABDM compliant, as a result of which, with this open source EMR, the provider can obtain and verify the ABHA ID and obtain the demographic information of the patient. In addition, the facility can act as HIP, i.e. create medical records that can be digitally shared, and as HIU, i.e. request and view patient records in software. Bahmani is a Health Repository Provider (HRP) that is an ABDM compatible software provider, having the authority to register multiple HIPs (features) in the ABDM ecosystem.
What are the next steps for integration in Bahmani and how will it improve public health and small medical practitioners in small places?
Going forward, Bahmani will have integrated solutions for health centers using the Internet of Things, and will focus on expanding and building integrated solutions ranging from converged medical infrastructure to health analytics, IoT. Cloud origin Support and integration with the ecosystem. We are working with IIT-Mumbai to scan lab results in AI / ML powered OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and integrate it with Clinical Records. As a result of product initiatives, Bahmni was recently listed as Digital Public Good. The ability to serve as an open-source reference EMR application globally, and will play a key role in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. As a digital public good, this open source EMR will enjoy increased visibility and support to meet global challenges.
Today, it is applied to more than 500 hospitals in 50 countries, benefiting millions of patients worldwide and revolutionizing patient care across rural areas. We hope that this number will increase further as the impact has spread to all countries.
We are working towards creating an India-specific ABDM compliant distro that can be adopted by hospitals as well as small single practitioner clinics, polyclinics. To take advantage of the power of the ecosystem, Bahmani is working aggressively to further enhance its HL7 FHIR interoperability support – towards a vision where it can become a platform where appropriate for the purpose, the relevant applications / extensions can be created independently by the ecosystem.
In the future, Bahmani’s India distribution will also consider integrating and supporting ABDM’s forthcoming “Unified Health Interface” and “Health Claims Exchange” protocols, to provide comprehensive OSS stacks for integration with a wider ecosystem for accessibility, access, discovery and service delivery. .
How is the Open Source Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) advancing in the healthcare domain? Do you face any challenges while implementing it? Is the open source model sustainable?
The focus has always been on offering open source options for commercial options for hospitals, clinics, health departments in different locations. The initiative is empowering medical practitioners in smaller locations and helping doctors build a system where they can improve patient care and potentially save more lives.
The challenge was to create a convenient hospital management system for users unfamiliar with technology. The system needs to work for a low-resource (including financial, infrastructure and human resource) environment. The key is to address these challenges and meet the needs of end users, to understand their situation in a complex way, to empathize with their live experience and to validate ideas with users.
On the implementation side, the common challenges we face are the lack of understanding for digital intervention and change management. Investing in the evolution of implementation is another challenge. Sustaining an open source community-driven platform is a significant endeavor and we can do it with a lot of help – in building capabilities and capabilities and of course funding.
The open source model is definitely becoming an option for many providers. While organizations often choose FOSS solutions for financial reasons, other significant benefits such as transparency and trust, ease of adoption and use, accumulated knowledge and power of the global community, security, interdependence and openness are becoming more apparent to healthcare providers. Even for system integrators or specialized service providers, OSS solutions are a stronger option than entering into complex agreements with COTS vendors. We believe that a truly community-driven OSS solution could have a far-reaching impact on the delivery and management of high quality health care and potentially embark on a digital health journey in India.
