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The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Pathology, New Delhi has launched the Diagnostic Services in Healthcare (DISHA) portal to help the public in accessing nearest diagnostic healthcare facilities towards ensuring early detection and proactive management.
DISHA: Availability & Geo-mapping of Laboratory services in India (www.icmrdisha.in) will empower the consumer or patient with the knowledge to make informed decisions regarding the type of facility, the distance, test availability, test cost and turn-around time.
“This web portal is a dynamic platform which is being updated with new data-points as and when we have the access to required data. The ICMR is in the process of cataloguing diagnostic public healthcare facilities throughout the country and constructing a user-friendly and comprehensive dynamic online map to showcase the availability of relevant laboratory services,” informed Dr. Usha Agrawal, director and scientist G, ICMR-National Institute of Pathology, New Delhi.
Dr Agrawal further said that robust diagnostic healthcare services lay the foundation of an efficient and high-quality healthcare system. Up to 60% to 70% of all critical healthcare decisions are based on the evidence provided by laboratory services. Access to the information regarding the location and availability of the diagnostic tests is a critical necessity. In a country as vast as ours, we require the necessary resources to locate the laboratories which provide the required tests.
Dr Agrawal explained, “To enhance accessibility to essential information, we've implemented Geographic Information System (GIS) due to its resource integration capabilities. This enables us to develop solutions for identifying and locating diagnostic healthcare services more effectively. It is a free public resource for locating the nearest diagnostic health facilities enabling increased utilization of public health services. Areas with an imbalance between population densities and diagnostic facilities can be identified. The data would enable the public health experts and government policy makers to consolidate the diagnostic healthcare system by empowering the existing labs or creating new facilities where necessary.”
Diagnostic healthcare services contribute significantly to the delivery of healthcare. The Indian diagnostic healthcare system is vast and complex with numerous stakeholders, and is variably distributed in different geographical areas. The government has set guidelines for operation and quality of diagnostic public health facilities, however, currently, the country has no information on availability of test’s, their costs, and infrastructure to gauge the effective utilization of health services.
Around 30 % of patients suffering from tuberculosis are undiagnosed, leading to 1.5 million deaths globally. An error rate of 84.3% has been reported in Angola due to clinical over diagnosis of Malaria un-supported by laboratory diagnosis.
Around 38% of maternal deaths could be completely avoided if a clinical misdiagnosis was avoided on the basis of evidence generated by the laboratory.
Benefits of mapping diagnostic health facilities are decreased disparity in availability of diagnostic services among different geographical locations and population densities, removing barriers in seeking and receiving healthcare, strengthening infrastructure and manpower at under equipped facilities and decrease in out of pocket expenditures.
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