What is in news : To ensure that quality healthcare is accessible to all citizens, the existing Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and referral hospitals under BBMP will be converted to ‘Smart Clinics’.

Details :

• Have several digital interventions, including online consultations, three-way counselling/consultations between specialists, PHC doctors and patients, and creating a digital database with complete data of the patients visiting the PHCs.
• Being executed by the Bengaluru Smart City Ltd. (BSCL)
• Earlier, the Smart Clinics tender was restricted to only the six referral hospitals. We received recommendations and suggestions to integrate all existing health infrastructure facilities of the BBMP. Hence, the tender was cancelled
• Bringing BBMP’s PHCs, referral, and maternity hospitals under the same platform is being worked out
• According to rough estimates, around 17 lakh citizens, especially those belonging to lower socio-economic groups, visit the 141 PHCs, six referral and around 30 maternity hospitals in the city. With the lack of specialists, many patients are forced to visit private hospitals
• The Integrated Command Centre had been established for COVID-19 management. The same would be used to integrate all the existing health infrastructure in the BBMP.
• Whenever a patient comes to the PHC, the system can immediately generate the patient’s medical history that is stored digitally. The same can be shared with the specialists who will be sitting in the centralised health centre, which will help in medical counselling