Inauguration of Inpatient Management System

01 January, 2024

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Background

In Bangladesh, inpatient management in most government hospitals is still conducted through paper-based systems, with no real-time electronic recording or management. To advance healthcare, it is essential to introduce modern technologies in patient care and management. The absence of an electronic patient record system often forces doctors to rely on patients' verbal accounts of their illness histories. This approach can be significantly improved with a centralized patient record system, enabling physicians to make more informed decisions—something that is already standard practice in many developed countries.
Introducing such changes to the government healthcare system is challenging. Without background studies on implementation challenges, effective planning and scaling become difficult. However, in Bangladesh, there is also a lack of research on the actual costs, planning, and resources required to implement such transformations nationwide, particularly in a system that is inherently resilient to change.
Moreover,

Objectives

To address this gap, the Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Faridpur Medical College Hospital, Professor Dr. Dilruba Zeba embarked on a mission to implement a software-based inpatient management system within her department. Her objectives were

• to replace all paper-based tasks with a computer-based system in a scientific and research-oriented way,
• to introduce a platform for recording all patient data from admission to discharge,
• to enable electronic creation of prescriptions, consent forms, and pre- and postoperative orders,
• to digitally store investigation reports that are not typically included in patient files at the hospital, and
• to assign a unique ID to each patient, ensuring that their previous hospital records are easily accessible if they return.

Also, the wanted to launch the system from January 1st in 2024.

Method (Where I Enter the Scenario)

In the second week of November 2023, Professor Dr. Dilruba Zeba approached me to ask if there was any platform that met her objectives. Later, she requested that I build a customized system so we could have the full flexibility to modify, adapt, and improve it, thereby avoiding additional barriers that might delay its implementation.
Building such a system within two weeks was challenging. However, as I already had a software solution with similar capabilities, I offered to help. Using my existing scientific prescription-writing software, SciRx, as a foundation, I adapted it to meet the hospital's specific needs.

Despite the challenges, after several days and sleepless nights, I successfully deployed the software four days ahead of schedule. I used the remaining four days to train the end users—doctors in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology—and fine-tune the software to ensure it met their needs effectively.

Some Photos from the Day

Conclusion

The project came to an end due to some operational difficulties but we had several learnings from this implementation. Details of the learnings will be discussed further in another case study.