Conclusive Assessment and Digital Footprint in Equipment Maintenance of Government Managed Hospitals in India

Hospitals are the fundamental entities of the healthcare infrastructure for any country. The manage- ment of hospitals and the resultant quality of health- care not only has an impact on the social wellness of the country, but has a direct correlation with the eco- nomic prosperity of the country on several globally ac- ceptableindicators.Therefore,indevelopingcountries, Healthcarefacilitiesareprimarilymanageddirectlyby the government in terms of funds or concessions/aids. However, agencies such as the World Health Organi- zation, World Bank and several NGOs aid the main- tenance and development of these healthcare facilities by providing manpower and financial support. Akey component of the financial support and other aids are in term of consumable and non-consumable items such as sutures, dressing materials and medical equipment such as X-RAY, MRI, CT SCAN, Blood Sampling ma- chines, cooling and heating machines, stretchers, beds, etc. However, the nature of these items and the aid presents a challenge in value of traceability, mainte- nanceandconditionsoftheitemsprocuredandreceived overtime.IncountrieslikeIndia,wherethehealthcen- ters are distributed across the country with most of the aid now channeled towards smaller districts and rural areas, it becomes imperative to leverage the interven- tions in ICT to systematically achieve the maximal im- pactoftheitemsreceivedorpurchasedfromaid.Tothis end, we propose an end-to-end equipment tracking and management system with the specific focus on tracking the maintenance and conditions of the equipment avail- able at these facilities tackling the outlined issues. We also present a case study with a statewide implementa- tion in Madhya Pradesh, India with over 1500 health- carefacilities.