Nurses at SMS Hospital against using personal IDs for work under IHMS

JAIPUR: A month after Integrated Health Management System (IHMS) was launched at Sawai Man Singh Hospital on a pilot basis for “fast and smooth functioning” of healthcare services, the system has faced protests from nurses of the hospital.
The nurses are up against the way IHMS has been implemented and say they have been directed to use their personal single sign on (SSO) IDs for admitting, discharging and referring patients and also for arranging medicines and other consumables for them. IHMS was launched at the hospital on October 14.

“We are not opposing IHMS per se as it is a useful initiative taken by the government. We are opposing the use of our personal SSO IDs for all the work that was being done manually earlier. Most nurses are worried that such use of their personal SSO IDs will make them accountable for any lapse or problem later,” said Rajesh Sharma, spokesperson of the Jaipur district branch of Rajasthan Nurses Association (RNA).
Asserting that admitting and discharging patients is the work of doctors, Sharma said: “When even other work including the arrangement of medicines for patients is done with the approval of doctors, they have asked us to do it from our personal SSO IDs, making us accountable for all such work”.
The nurses use their SSO IDs for filing their annual confidential reports (ACR) and property details. “The SSO IDs also contain details of the nurses’ provident fund and pay slips, which could be leaked under IHMS. We demand that separate SSO IDs be created for each unit, which can be accessed by both doctors and nurses under IHMS,” said Sharma.
Nrses at the hospital have stopped discharging patients through IHMS. They are doing it manually as before.
“But manual discharge has compounded the problems. When a patient is not discharged through IHMS, when they come for a follow-up, the system shows that they are still admitted at the hospital. Their OPD registration is rejected because a patient needs to be discharged from the hospital to register for OPD. We are taking measures to resolve all the issues as IHMS is a new system and is being implemented on a pilot basis,” said SMS Hospital superintendent Dr Achal Sharma. She, however, said IHMS has been quite useful as it helps make the functioning of the hospital smooth.