Her Excellency the Health Minister Dechen Wangmo met the youth employed through Druk Gyalpo Relieve Kidu (DGRK) currently working at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital on digitization of health records for two months (November-December).

As a pilot, the project was initiated with engagement of 105 Bhutanese. 99 of them started their engagement from 5th November 2020 – 84 are scanning and archiving in-patient data and 15 participants are engaged with the Mother and Child Hospital. The additional 6 are engaged with the Ministry of Health in data entry and digitization of health record inventories.

Way forward

1. The Basic Health Units I and Basic Health Units II in Dzongkhags under the Ministry of Health has a stock of physical records. Therefore, digitization of the physical records could be replicated within the scope of BHUs in Dzongkhags after completing the pilot project with the JDWNRH.

2. DHI as an apex commercial body has planned to initiate a business startup aiming towards an intelligent data management system. The DHI has announced a hackathon challenge. The startup company identified after a hackathon will be responsible for running the system and DHI would initially do hand-holding by providing digitization works through DHI-owned companies. The same company will be providing employment in digitization of the physical records.