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MyHealthcare has announced the launch of its MyHealthcare Enterprise Application (MHEA) for hospitals and healthcare institutions, taking another important step towards the digitisation and digitalisation of healthcare in India. it’ll enable clinicians and hospital teams to manage complete patient care and hospital operations, through a task-based healthcare information management system. The MHEA ecosystem has been architected to drive operational and process efficiencies across the provider network, help with the entire digitisation of the clinical, administrative and procurement processes. The MyHealthcare Ecosystem and MHEA together will offer a connected care continuum platform, driving the most effective standards in patient care. “The combined experience of the team at MyHealthcare Enterprise Application has looked at every pain point faced by hospital operations, nursing, clinical teams, and ensured that we deliver a platform that helps them in improving the way they must do their tasks and deliver better patient care. the single screen experience, with our innovative platforms will pave a new path towards enriched user experience in hospital management,” said, Diwakar Bhowmik, vice chairman and platform lead, MyHealthcare Enterprise Application. Informing that the platform will deliver better patient outcomes, Divya Laroyia, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, MyHealthcare, said, “The MHEA ecosystem will help deliver the best-in-class user experience for hospital operations and clinical teams. we’ve used process automation and AI to bring to users’ relevant information and enable them to finish all tasks from a single screen. in comparison to current operating standards, our analysis shows that the MHEA ecosystem will help improve operational efficiencies by an estimated 76 per cent and reduced training time by around 80 per cent.” The platform is made on an open-source stack, employing a micro-services architecture which helps reduce operating costs for hospitals. The ecosystem also helps hospitals in improving procurement efficiencies through its smart stocking platform and helps improve patient experience significantly, through its discharge process automation. Commenting on the launch Aneesh Nair, Co-founder and CIO, said “The MHEA expands this to secondary, tertiary and emergency care. Our focus in bringing the MHEA ecosystem to the market has been to ensure we are able to drive value for our healthcare partners. The technology stack we’ve chosen helps reduce a hospitals technology operating expense by over 40 per cent and delivers the best-in-class data security.” The MHEA ecosystem comes integrated across a large network of TPA and health insurance companies. The easy-to-use workflow configurator allows hospitals to configure their operating and clinical workflows, without any need for coding and development effort.

India on Saturday recorded 1,27,952 new COVID-19 cases, taking the complete count to 4,20,80,664, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The nation additionally revealed 1,059 new demises as of now taking the aggregate count of deaths to 5,01,114 due to Covid.  With this, the dynamic caseload of India is at 13,31,648, establishing 3.16 percent of the nation’s complete positive cases. The national COVID-19 recuperation rate remained at 95.64 percent while the positivity rate moreover tumbled to 7.98 percent, the health ministry said. The week after week positivity rate additionally plunged to 11.21 percent. As many of 2,30,814 recoveries were accounted for as of now, taking the combined count of recuperated patients to 4,02,47,902. A sum of 16,03,856 tests were led as of now. Over 73.79 crore tests have been led such a long way in the nation, said the ministry. With the administration of 47,53,081 antibody dosages as of now, India’s aggregate count of inoculation remained at 1,68,98,17,199 according to provisional reports till 7 am today. Source: ANI

NEET PG exam that was scheduled to be held on March 12 has been postponed by 6-8 weeks, the Union Health Ministry announced via a government circular. In an order issued on Thursday, the director of health services wrote, “I am directed to say that lot of representations were being received from medical doctors regarding request to delay NEET-PG-2022 examination date i.e. 12.03.22 as published in information bulletin by NBE since it is clashing with the NEET PG 2021 counselling. Also, many of the interns would not be able to participate in the PG Counselling 2022 by the month of May/2022.” “Keeping the above facts in view, the minister has taken the decision to postpone NEET PG 2022 by 6-8 weeks or suitably,” the order said. The Supreme Court was scheduled to listen to a plea on the postponement of the examination on Friday. The plea was filed on January 25. Six MBBS students approached the apex court as many requirements like mandatory internship etc weren’t fulfilled by many aspirants. Many internships got halted due to their Covid duty, they said. According to one among the NEET PG regulations, 30 beds of a hospital need to be assigned to at least one unit of students pursuing the PG course and now two students of two academic sessions will need to be accommodated within the same facility, the plea said. There was a delay in conducting the exams in 2021 which was due to the pandemic situation. Many MBBS graduated are yet to finish their internship, without completing which they’ll not be eligible for the entrance exam this year. The Supreme Court, on January 7, had paved the way for resuming the stalled NEET-PG 2021 counselling process based on the prevailing 27 per cent OBC and 10 per cent EWS reservations in the All India Quota seats, saying there’s an “urgent need” to start the admission process. Source: PTI

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget, said a national tele-mental health program will be launched for mental health counselling. IIT Bangalore will provide tech support for the programme. She also said an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out “It will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity and universal access to health facilities,” she said. She said the government is focused on empowering the youths, women and the poor sections in the country, adding that the government’s next target is to create 60 lakh jobs. The programme will include 23 tele mental health centres of excellence with National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (Nimhans) being the nodal centre and technology support being provided by IIT Bangalore, she added. “We are in the midst of the Omicron wave, the speed of our vaccination campaign has helped greatly. I am confident that ‘Sabka Prayaas’, we’ll continue with strong growth,” the FM said in her initial part of the Budget speech. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting her fourth Budget that is aimed at maintaining the world’s fastest-growing economy tag for India. The budget comes days before the first phase of voting in Uttar Pradesh, which along with four other states is going to the polls to elect a new state government.  

Amidst rising COVID-19 cases and the discovery of new variants, Britain is reviewing its decision to make vaccine jabs mandatory for healthcare workers amidst tension of losing thousand of staff. In England, there are high tensions and concerns amongst hospitals and the government that because of making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory, they could lose tens of thousands of workers. The decision has met a lot of resistance from a significant group of some healthcare workers, with warnings that sacking those who did not comply could leave the NHS facing significant staff shortages, while a number of lawmakers in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party have also criticized the decision. The government also said on Monday that they have received the long-awaited report on the investigation into lockdown-breaching government parties. The Cabinet Office said senior civil servant Sue Gray “has provided an update on her investigations to the Prime Minister.” Johnson’s office has promised the report will be published “swiftly”. Source: Reuters and Associated Press  

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya will chair a high-level meeting today with the health ministers of southern states, Union territories to review the Covid-19 situation. He will also review public health measures taken in view of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. The Covid-19 review meet will be held virtually at 2.30pm. The state health ministers from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands are expected to attend the meeting, reported ANI citing people familiar with the matter. Senior health officials will also attend the meeting. Mandaviya held a high-level Covid review meeting with nine northern states and UTs on Tuesday where he advised to share Covid testing and vaccination data in a timely manner. He asked the states witnessing a decline in Covid-19 testing to ramp it up through RTPCR. Advising the states and UTs to ensure efficient monitoring of those in-home isolation in line with the national guidelines, the minister said, “This will ensure that the vulnerable categories of active cases in home isolation get the required medical help in a timely manner.” He reminded them to keep a close watch on the emerging clusters and hotspots of Covid-19 and monitor the trend of hospitalisations and virus-related deaths. Mandaviya said that with our past experience, ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and Adherence to Covid Appropriate Behaviour’ along with monitoring of cases remains crucial for Covid management. In order to expedite the implementation of activities under the ECRP-II package, he asked the “health ministers and the state authorities to plug the existing gaps by efficiently utilizing the amount sanctioned for various infra projects.” Source: ANI

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya will interact with the health ministers of nine states and Union territories (UTs) on Tuesday over the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) situation. The virtual interaction will take place at 10.30am, news agency ANI reported. The states and UTs which will take part in the virtual interaction are Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh. In an earlier interaction with states and UTs, Mandaviya advised them to keep a tab on infrastructural matters regarding medical oxygen. He also asked them to establish teleconsultation hubs in every district and focus on widespread awareness regarding available infrastructure and healthcare services. Mandaviya has been holding such meetings to review the Covid-19 situation in various parts of the country. Some of these meetings were held with a particular group of states where the positivity rate and the spread of the infection were higher than other parts of the country. India has witnessed a surge in the number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the past few weeks, especially after the emergence of the new Omicron variant. The highly-mutated strain is believed to be more resistant to vaccines. Meanwhile, India reported 3,06,064 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, nearly 28,000 less than the day before. The Union health ministry said that the positivity rate in the country has reached 20 per cent. The ministry also said that India’s active caseload stands at 22,49,335 and accounts for 5.69 per cent of the total cases. Source: ANI

Healthcare sector is likely to receive the highest priority in the upcoming Union Budget 2022-23 on account of continuing challenges posed by COVID-19 and the imperative need for scaling up public health infrastructure, an Assocham survey said on Thursday. The industry chamber noted that 47 per cent of the respondents in its survey pointed towards Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman according maximum attention to healthcare in the Budget. Besides, MSMEs, energy and infrastructure and technology were also on priority list as per the survey done among 400 respondents across 40 cities from different sectors, it stated. While the government’s proactive measures and the frontline workers’ tireless efforts have helped tide over the uncertain situation, the pandemic also brought forth certain gaps in the public healthcare system, Assocham said. Besides, nearly 40 per cent of the Assocham survey respondents said the Finance Minister should reduce the income tax among other measures to boost private demand and consumption. About 31 per cent said Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the poor households could be a demand driver at the bottom of the pyramid. Asked what policy-makers can do to scale up the pace of job creation, majority of the respondents wanted the government to focus on infrastructure and the housing sector. Further incentives to the companies to hire more people would also help, they said. Moreover, 28 per cent of the respondents stated that the Budget should include measures to encourage access to the latest technologies at a lower cost for MSMEs. Source: PTI

The Maharashtra government on Monday issued a letter to the district, civic administrations and health departments in the state asking them to use oral anti-viral drug ‘Molnupiravir’ for treatment of symptomatic, adult COVID-19 patients with “abundant caution and in certain conditions”. Dr Pradeep Vyas, Additional Chief Secretary (Health), in the letter, requested district and civic authorities to use Molnupiravir with “abundant caution and in certain conditions and in full advised dose”. He said this drug has received emergency use authorization (from the Drug Controller General of India) and based on the opinion of some experts it has also been included in treatment protocol circulated on January 6, 2022, in the state subject to certain conditions. “Subsequently, certain state governments like Odisha have withdrawn this drug from the market. ICMR has also not recommended its use in the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection (which causes COVID-19). Molnupiravir has not been included in the Standard Treatment Protocol released by the Government of India on January 17, 2022,” Dr Vyas said in the letter. Molnupiravir has been shown to reduce hospitalization in a clinical trial and thus has received emergency use authorization, not an FDA approval, the letter stated. Source: CNBC