Pilot project to issue Personal Health Numbers

The Policy Development Office (PDO) of the Prime Minister’s Office visited the Teaching Hospital Karapitiya and Elpitiya Base Hospital in Galle District to assess the progress of the innovative project on issuing the Personal Health Number (PHN). Hospital staff and patients were very supportive of the pilot project.

The officers of the PDO observed that in units where the PHN card was used, patients were properly identified and channelled to relevant service stations of the hospital, without waiting in long queues. For instance, in the Emergency Unit of the Teaching Hospital Karapitiya, the more critical patients were identified quickly using cutting-edge technology, with the assistance of a nurse attendant, and given priority treatment, saving time and people’s lives.

The Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicines of Sri Lanka initiated this project as an innovative project through funding from Component II of the Second Health Sector Development Project of the World Bank, with the objective of designing and testing a Healthcare Recipient Identification System (HRIS) with a Master Patient Index (MPI), with customisation of Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) and e-Indoor Morbidity and Mortality Report (eIMMR), to estimate the actual disease burden in a selected cluster of hospitals. Morbidity and Mortality data can be leveraged to target sufficient resources to address different health issues across the region.

Pilot on the HRIS at a selected cluster of Hospitals in Galle and Kalutara districts was one of the main objectives of this project. Teaching Hospital Karapitiya, Base Hospital Elpitiya and Divisional Hospitals at Bopitiya and Karandeniya are the hospitals selected for this purpose and this project was successfully terminated in August.

The efforts made by the Ministry of Health with the assistance of the staff of the cluster hospitals, in pioneering the PHN innovative project in selected hospitals, should be highly commended. Since the pilot has been successfully implemented, the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine will roll out the initiative across Sri Lanka.