JIPMER, Puducherry has become the first institute in South India to launch a health information kiosk open to the public, patients, and their care givers with access to information on various diseases and health initiatives and programmes offered by the government.

Jawharlal Institute of Graduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) here has installed the health information portal in Puducherry  on 12^th March. According to a Jipmer statement, Dr Subhash Chandra Parija, Director, Jipmer, inaugurated the ‘Health Information Kiosk’ in the presence of Head of IT Wing Prof Dr Ravi Kumar Chittoria and Deputy Medical Superintendent Prof Sai Chandran.

The kiosk has been supplied by Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MOHFW), Govt of India. It is linked online to the National Health Portal (NHP) website. The public, patients, and their caregivers can access this kiosk in super-specialty blocks and at the women & children hospital (WCH) of JIPMER.

This kiosk acts as single point of access for consolidated authentic health information related to various diseases like diabetes, dengue and information related to smoking, family planning etc. Further it has access to mobile applications which patients can download on their phones. Dr Parija said Jipmer being the Institute of National Importance and Regional Resource Centre (RRC) for Telemedicine is the first Institute in South India to launch this kiosk. This kiosk gives information regarding various IT initiatives related to health programmes and initiatives of Govt of India under ‘Digital India’.

The information kiosk provides an integrated view about the healthcare system applications like NHP Swasth Bharat, MeraAspataal App, NHP Directory Services Mobile App, Pradhan Mantri Surakshitmatritva Abhiyan (PMSMA), Cessation Tobbocco, diabetes and ageing. Also it provides a health calendar related to special or awareness on that particular day like Measles Day, Immunization Day and World Oral Health Day.