Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission: QR-Based OPD Registration Starts In Two Delhi Hospitals

The QR Code-based OPD registration will allow the patients to provide accurate data and most importantly help avoid long queues at the hospitals.

New Delhi: The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has started a faster way to register for OPD services at the new OPD block of Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) and Smt. Sucheta Kriplani Hospital (SSKH) in New Delhi, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday. According to ANI, this will help old as well as new patients to simply scan a QR Code and enter details like name, father name, age, gender, address, mobile number etc. with the hospital, the NHA said in a statement. 

It will reduce time, help patients provide accurate data and most importantly help avoid long queues at the hospitals. The service will be extended to other facilities as well. 

According to ANI, QR Code-based OPD registration will allow the patients to scan the hospital's unique QR Code with their mobile phone (using phone camera/scanner/ABHA App/Arogya Setu App/or any other ABDM enabled App) and share their profile details with the hospital. Once the profile is shared, the hospital provides a token number (queue number).

The token number is sent as a notification to the patient's selected app and is also displayed on the screens placed at the OPD registration counters for the ease of patients. As per their token number, the patient can go to the registration counter and directly collect their outpatient slip (OP Slip) for doctor consultation as their details are already present at the registration counter.

Dr R S Sharma, the CEO, of NHA, spoke to ANI about the benefits of the service and said, "Under the ABDM, we're using technology to simplify processes and make healthcare more efficient. The QR Code-based rapid OPD registration service is a step in this direction. It helped over 2200 patients avoid the hustle of long queues with considerably reduced waiting time and minimal time at the registration counter within 15 days of this pilot in LHMC & SSKH."

"Direct profile sharing has also helped achieve a higher level of accuracy in patient records. Our team is working with other health facilities and departments to extend this service and help more patients", Dr Sharma added.

The ABDM team worked closely with the team of the hospitals to set up the QR Code for faster registration service. To reduce waiting time for patients, appropriate messaging and a kiosk were set up.

Support personnel were also posted to help them understand the steps and benefits of using this service, ANI reported.

The team also helped the patients create their Ayushman Bharat Health Account or ABHA numbers that will help them in digitising their health records. These services will now be extended to more health facilities like hospitals, clinics, diagnostic labs etc. to help patients save time and effort.