Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan inaugurates 3rd National Conference on ERMED Consortium: Digital Health Resources
“India is observing significant expansion of
medical and paramedical institutions; Must implement global best practices
after considering local needs”
COVID Pandemic provided fillip to the ecosystem of digital medical care;
services like Electronic ICUs and Teleconsultations are now a reality
Rajesh Bhushan, Union Secretary for Health and Family Welfare
inaugurated 3rd National Conference “ERMED
Consortium: Digital Health Resources: A reality” in the presence of Dr.
(Professor) Atul Goel, DGHS at National Medical Library, here today.
National
Medical Library’s Electronic Resources in Medicine (NML-ERMED) Consortium is
the flagship electronic resources consortium by Directorate General of Health
Services(DGHS) & Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, wherein
access to 228 eJournals are being provided round the clock to 71 state and
centrally funded Government Institutions including all All India Institute of
Medical Science (AIIMS).
Rajesh
Bhushan congratulated the NML for their expansion efforts and pointed out that
the overall library scenario has changed nationally and globally post pandemic.
He said that rapid transition has been taking place be it from print and manual
learning resources to electronic forms. “But we must not lose sight of the
bigger picture that India is perhaps one of the few countries in the world that
is observing significant expansion of medical institutions in the recent times.
Hence, we must be careful in adopting global technological practices and must
take into account our local needs.”
While
highlighting the presence of vibrant research community in India and our
technological prowess which needs to be further encouraged, Union Health
Secretary mentioned about the CoWIN platform that has been able to robustly
serve not just our citizens with more than 2 billion vaccine doses recorded
digitally but has been hailed as a global best practice. He urged the
stakeholders to come up with similar digital platforms and create homegrown
best practices where Indian methods and Indian solutions dominate the digital
spaces.
Rajesh
Bhushan reiterated the implications of pandemic on medical teaching and medical
care. Citing examples of Electronic ICUs or tele-ICUs and Teleconsultations
that has become a commonplace now, he emphasized that pandemic has provided the
fillip to the ecosystem of digital medical care. He noted that that Government
of India is expanding these services by taking technical advantage of Internet
and mobile technology penetration in the country. These avenues are being
pushed forward at the ground level for ensuring accessibility, affordability,
equity along with quality of healthcare services. Building on this strong
ground work, libraries must also come up with innovative best practices so that
it can help cater to the needs of our medical professionals, he
highlighted.
The
prime focus of ERMED is helping medical colleges to comply with NMC guidelines,
standardize care across all clinicians, reduce variability in care, enable safe
patient care, drive appropriate drug use and prescribing behavior, decrease
medical errors, stop unnecessary diagnostic testing, shorten length-of-stay, lower
mortality rates, exposure to the latest research, information development,
scientific and technological progress. ERMED consortium would expand the
research output and the ranking of the member institutions in this process.
Government of India has provided the financial support required for the access
to electronic journals under the NML-ERMED consortium project. ERMED members
have access to advanced clinical tools and resources published by the
well-known publishers for benefit of faculty members and students.
Official
website of NML-ERMED (http://www.ermed.in/) and booklet
were also launched at the event.
Dr
(Prof) Atul Goel, DGHS, Ashish Srivastava, AS & FA, Hekali Zhimomi, JS, Dr (Prof)
B Srinivas, Director National Medical Library, Dr (Prof) Anil Maniktala,
DDG(P), DGHS, Dr Rajiv Garg Professor of Excellence (POE) along with other
experts and officials from Ministry were present at the event.