Clinic and hospital software in Andhra Pradesh: Vizag, Vijayawada, Guntur, Tirupati

Andhra Pradesh has a dense network of private hospitals outside any one capital city. Visakhapatnam serves the north coast, Vijayawada and Guntur the Krishna and Guntur districts, Rajahmundry, Kakinada and Eluru the Godavari districts, Nellore the south coast, and Tirupati, Kurnool, Kadapa and Anantapur Rayalaseema. Many of these hospitals were started by a doctor or a group of doctors, grew ward by ward, and now run on a mix of paper files, a billing program and a separate pharmacy system.

This article is for doctors, owners and administrators in Andhra Pradesh choosing clinic or hospital software. It covers what practices across the state ask for and what to check in a demo. For general checklists, see clinic management software and hospital management software.

1. Telugu for the staff and the patient

Ask about Telugu in three places, because vendors often translate one and not the others:

• The screens the front desk, nurses and pharmacy staff use all day.
• The printed papers: the prescription, the bill and the discharge summary.
• What the patient reads at home: an explanation of the prescription, the report and the next visit, in Telugu, on the phone they already carry.

2. Walk-ins and the token queue

Most OPDs in Guntur, Ongole or Kurnool run on walk-ins. The software should register a walk-in by phone number in under a minute, give a token, and show the doctor and the desk the same queue. Families often share one phone, so the search has to find the right person on a shared number, and link family members to each other, rather than create duplicate records.

The fee rules should be in the software, not in the receptionist’s memory: a new patient, a review within the free window and a revisit after it should be suggested from the patient’s history and charged the same way by everyone at the desk.

3. Visiting consultants

Many hospitals in Andhra Pradesh depend on consultants who also see patients at two or three other hospitals in the week. The software should give such a doctor one login, show them only the records of the hospital they are working in, and let each hospital set when the doctor’s access begins and ends. The consultant’s OPD, prescriptions and procedures should still be counted per doctor for the revenue share at the end of the month.

4. NTR Vaidya Seva, EHS, PM-JAY and insurance

In surgical hospitals and nursing homes a large share of admissions come under a scheme, Dr NTR Vaidya Seva (the scheme earlier known as Aarogyasri), the Employees Health Scheme for government employees, or PM-JAY, or under a private insurer through a TPA. For each admission the software should record:

• how the patient is paying, and the policy or scheme card;
• the pre-authorisation request and the decision;
• charges that build up on the admission as they happen, from the pharmacy, the lab and the theatre;
• the final claim, the amount settled, and anything deducted;
• the patient’s own share, billed separately at the counter.

A claim that is chased from paper files months later is a claim that loses money. Ask to see a scheme admission run from admission to settlement in the demo.

5. The pharmacy and the lab in the building

A hospital in Vijayawada or Rajahmundry usually has its own pharmacy and lab. When they run on separate systems, medicines and tests for in-patients are written on slips and typed in at discharge, and some never reach the bill. The doctor’s prescription should arrive at the pharmacy counter ready to bill, tests ordered from the consult should reach the lab, and both should post to the admission’s bill as they happen. See pharmacy billing software and pathology lab software for what those counters need.

6. Patients from the villages around

A patient from a mandal two hours from Tirupati or Kakinada needs the visit to be complete in one trip, and a reason to come back for review. Follow-up dates on the prescription, a list of reviews due for the clinic to call, and the prescription, report and bill on the patient’s phone after the visit all reduce lost follow-ups.

7. Days on paper

When the power or the internet goes out, browser-based software cannot be used until it returns, so keep a mobile hotspot as a backup. A morning run on paper should be entered afterwards, dated to the day it happened, with the record showing it was entered later and the owner approving those entries.

Across the state

The checks above are the same for a 150-bed hospital in Visakhapatnam, a maternity nursing home in Guntur, an eye hospital in Nellore and a clinic in Anantapur. What differs is which parts are needed on the first day. A clinic needs the front desk, the prescription and the counter; a hospital needs admissions, the theatre and claims as well. Software that lets a practice start with the OPD and add the in-patient side later avoids a second migration.

Questions to ask in a demo in Andhra Pradesh

1. Switch the screens to Telugu, and show what the patient reads on their phone after the visit.
2. Register two family members who share one phone number.
3. Give a visiting consultant access for three months, then show what they can see at another hospital.
4. Admit a scheme patient, record the pre-authorisation, and show the patient’s share billed separately.
5. Dispense a medicine and post a lab test to an admitted patient, and show both on the bill without re-typing.
6. Enter yesterday’s paper visits today and show how they are marked.

Where 92health fits

92health is an EMR with clinic and hospital management built around it, used by practices across India. For practices in Andhra Pradesh it offers:

• much of the app in Telugu, and patients who can read an explanation of their prescription or visit summary in Telugu on their phone;
• a token queue with walk-ins and bookings, visits sorted as new, review or revisit, QR self check-in, and family members linked on a shared phone;
• one login for a visiting doctor across hospitals, with each hospital’s records kept apart and access ending on the dates the hospital sets;
• the hospital side: admissions and beds, nursing, the theatre with the WHO checklist, emergency and ICU, and interim and final bills paid by cash, card, UPI or a TPA, with pre-authorisation, claims and settlement run from the admission;
• the pharmacy and the lab on the same patient record, with charges posting to the admission;
• past days entered later with the dates they happened, and an owner’s approval for them.

It runs in the browser, in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Nellore, Tirupati, Kurnool, Rajahmundry, Kakinada, Kadapa, Anantapur, Eluru, Ongole, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, Chittoor or anywhere else in the state. To see it on your own cases, book a demo.