All pvt hospitals ordered to update bed availability data

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has ordered private hospitals to update bed availability data in the respective software applications, failing which stringent administrative and legal action would be taken against them.

The bed availability data should be updated in Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST) software and Centralised Hospital Bed Management System (CHBMS).

The health Commissioner, in his order, said COVID inpatient availability data must be updated every six hours in the available CHBMS of BBMP and SAST Portals on a real-time basis, facilitating the immediate allocation of beds to the needy patients and to prevent avoidable life-threatening consequences due to delay in data updating.

Failure to comply would result in stringent administrative and legal actions being initiated against the defaulters as per the relevant provision of KPME Act 2017, Karnataka Epidemic Disease Ordinance 2020 (Karnataka Ordinance 07 of 2020) and Indian Penal Code by the competent authorities, in the interest of public health, the July 28 order said.

It said that in spite of clear cut instructions, guidelines and communications, private hospitals in the state in general and BBMP (Bengaluru city) in particular have not been updating data of availability of beds in the respective software applications, resulting in a lot of inconveniences.

The Karnataka government had directed all private hospitals to reserve 50 percent (General beds, HDU, and Isolation ICU with and without ventilator) of the total beds for treating government referred COVID-19 patients.

Subsequently, it had instructed the private hospitals to regularly update the display board on the availability of beds.

Bengaluru civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had also issued instructions to them to update the data of admission and discharge of patients.

Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust too had issued directions to all hospitals to submit preauthorization within 24 hours to avoid a mismatch between occupied beds and actually available beds, adding that the data needs to be updated in SAST software.