Empowering primary health care services through e-Governance - A case study from Delhi government

In the field of health care services the responsibility for their delivery is shared by many agencies in the public sector. In addition there are central government ministries each with their own institutions. Each of these agencies provides health care services in Delhi through a variety of outlets like dispensaries and hospitals. These institutions function independently and there is neither proper coordination between the government agencies managing them nor between the institutes themselves at the operational level. This coordination is essential from the point of view of having a structured patient referral system and sharing of resources between institutes in addition to providing feedback to shape government health policies. In this research paper the study focuses on primary health service centres of Delhi Government. The research objectives of this paper are: Study the working of Primary health centres including services provided. Study the level of IT usage in these dispensaries Analyze key problems faced by these dispensaries Propose an e Governance model to manage these dispensaries Determine obstacles & challenges in implementation of this model. This research paper uses some technologies that are being used by National health services (NHS) of UK. These technologies include use of call centers for service delivery and Decision support systems (DSS) that are being used in patient interaction.