Health Minister T. Harish Rao launched the Telangana Diagnostic mobile app on Wednesday morning, but it was not to be found on Google Play Store until late night. The app is supposed to make it easy for people to locate the Diagnostic Mini Hubs and Basthi Dawakhanas, but it remained unavailable.
Sources said that the department’s IT wing was on the task of sorting out the issue. Officials said the app would be accessible in a day or two.
Apart from locations of the health facilities and guidance for navigation, the mobile app will store test results of patients who undergo tests at the mini hubs. One can also use it to lodge complaints regarding medical services and share feedback.
Considering the extensive usage of technology these days to access medical services, the app would be of help to people who are often clueless about location of government health facilities.
Delay in results
Delays in receiving results of blood tests conducted at Telangana Diagnostic hubs was brought to the notice of senior Health officials. While the blood test results are supposed to be sent to the registered phone number of the patient/ attendant within 24 hours, delay of two to three days is observed in some cases.
Annoyed by the delay, frustrated patients and their kin have been venting their ire at medical officers at Primary Health Centres and doctors at Basthi Dawakhanas.
“Any delay in delivering medical services is not accepted, more so if a patient’s consultation with doctor is on hold only because of unavailable blood results. People will not want to bear health issues only because they did not receive the reports on time. The issue about the delays has been brought to the notice of senior officials,” said a source.
Sources added that it is taking three to five minutes to open a page where a patient’s details can be registered. Barcode for a sample is generated only after registering the details.
“A majority of people are receiving results within 24 hours; there are delays only in a few cases. One of the reasons is the issue with quantity and quality of a sample collected. Besides, the load of samples received by central hub has doubled in the recent past. Currently, around 7,000 samples are received every day. The issues will be sorted soon,” said another source in the Health department.
