NHA lauds Karnataka’s online referral system under Ayushman Bharat as one of country’s best practices  

The manual process used for referral prior to June involved filling out a pre-printed form physically

Karnataka’s online referral of patients from a government hospital to an empanelled higher facility for secondary and tertiary treatment under Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka (AB-ArK) scheme has won appreciation at the national level.

Noting that Karnataka is the first State to implement the online referral system (ORS), the National Health Authority (NHA) — the central agency implementing the health scheme — has recognised the module as one of the ‘best practices’ in the country.

The scheme covers 1,650 procedures — 294 simple secondary, 251 complex secondary, 934 tertiary care procedures and 171 emergency procedures. While the simple secondary procedures are completely handled at the government hospital level, for all other procedures patients need to be referred by a government hospital to a private facility if the former is not equipped to treat.

The manual process used for referral prior to June involved filling out a pre-printed form physically. The old process was time consuming for doctors and also caused inconvenience to patients. Besides, there were complaints of malpractices, wherein some patients used influence to get referred to a hospital of their choice although the government hospital had the capability to treat.

Although the online referral module was piloted in one taluk hospital and finalised in February 2020, implementation in all hospitals began only from June 1. Since then, around 11,823 online referrals have been made. The online referral is not only to ensure timely treatment for patients but also to usher in transparency, avoid malpractices and unnecessary referrals, State Health Commissioner Randeep D said.

“The objective of this module is to help identify hospitals where the patients could go to and prevent unnecessary referrals and an unhealthy nexus of the government and private institutions,” he told The Hindu.

The Commissioner, who was the in-charge executive director of the State Health Agency — Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST) till September, said now the capabilities and specialities of all public health institutions (PHI) and empanelled hospitals are mapped to the online referral system for which login credentials are given to public hospitals.