The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)
is undertaking a pilot for faster OPD registration service at the new OPD block of Lady Hardinge Medical
College (LHMC) & Smt. Sucheta Kriplani Hospital (SSKH) in New Delhi. This service allows old as well as
new patients to simply scan a QR Code and share their demographic details like name, father name, age,
gender, address, mobile number etc. with the hospital. This helps to reduce the time taken at the OPD
registration counter, provides accurate data in the hospital record and, most importantly, avoid the wait in the
long queues. The service is planned to be extended to other health facilities and departments soon.
The QR Code based OPD registration service allows the patients to scan the hospital’s unique QR Code with
their mobile phone (using phone camera/scanner/ABHA App/Arogya Setu App/or any other ABDM enabled
App) and share their profile details with the hospital. Once the profile is shared, the hospital provides a token
number (queue number). The token generated is sent as a notification to the patient’s selected app and is also
displayed on the screens placed at the OPD registration counters for the ease of patients. As per their token
number, the patient can go to the registration counter and directly collect their outpatient slip (OP Slip) for
doctor consultation as their details are already present at the registration counter.
Talking about the benefits of this service, Dr. R.S. Sharma, CEO, NHA said – “Under the ABDM, we’re
using technology to simplify processes and make healthcare more efficient. The QR Code based rapid OPD
registration service is a step in this direction. It helped over 2200 patients avoid the hustle of long queues with
considerably reduced waiting time and minimal time at the registration counter within 15 days of this pilot in
LHMC & SSKH. The direct profile sharing has also helped achieve higher level of accuracy in patient
records. Our team is working with other health facilities and departments to extend this service and help more
patients.”
The ABDM team worked closely with the team of LHMC/ SSKH to set-up the QR Code based faster
registration service for their OPD block. Appropriate messaging and kiosk were put up to significantly reduce
the waiting time for patients. Further, to assist the patients, support personnel were also posted to help them
understand the steps and benefits of using this service. The team also helped the patients create their
Ayushman Bharat Health Account or ABHA numbers that shall help them in digitizing their health records.
These services will now be extended to more health facilities like hospitals, clinics, diagnostic labs etc. to help
the patients save time and efforts.