According to the World Health Organization (WHO), for an efficient health system, the provision of equipment and diagnostics at a healthcare facility is as essential as the provision of trained medical professionals (WHO Report 2006).
The Government has been working hard to facilitate the provision of equipment/others at the healthcare facilities, but due to poor management, it is proving out to be a herculean task. As a result, the Government healthcare facilities have to be the scapegoat due to inadequacy and low-quality services provided.
The Government has made provisions for free drugs and free diagnostic investigations under various schemes, but the beneficiaries are not able to avail the services either due to absence or due to non-functional investigative machinery.
During routine visits of the healthcare facilities, it was observed that equipment/others was lying unutilised in the storeroom at some places, while at other places there was gross deficit of the same equipment/others. It was also observed that at some facilities, the devices have been non-functional for a long time and despite multiple requests for repair & maintenance, the department has shown cold shoulder every time.
Hence, there is an urgent need to establish a Centralised Inventory Management System for efficient functioning of all 2,971 healthcare facilities; therefore, e-Upkaran: EMMS (Equipment Management & Maintenance System), a complete system for equipment management and maintenance, was developed. The module in e-Upkaran includes equipment inventory module, equipment complaint/ maintenance module, equipment usage module and reporting module. The equipment new demand module and equipment transfer modules are on UAT.
Presently, e-Upkaran includes four modules:
Inventory module
Equipment maintenance module
Usages module
Reporting module
Outcomes
Improved health services
Centralised monitoring for optimum utilisations
Regular updated information and reporting
Ascertain the new needs and need base rationalisation
Established a biomedical equipment repair and maintenance system
Reduced equipment breakdown time
Quick win response with better coordination in health programmes
Better hospitals management in the State
Progress
e-Upkaran was launched on 2nd October, 2015 by Honble Health Minister.
The verification work has been done by chief medical and health officers (CMHOs) and PMOs. And, now the verification work of medical college hospitals has been undertaken.
The repair and maintenance of biomedical equipment agency Kirloskar Technology Private Limited (KTPL) was finalised by Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation Limited (RMSCL) and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Government and KTPL on 8th August 2016.
In first 3 months, the agency will complete mapping and repairing of all non-functional repairable equipment. After that, the agency will address R&M complaints round the clock work through e-Upkaran and a call centre.
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