Water-tight system developed to prevent hoarding, unscrupulous use and pilferage

Mysore/Mysuru: A COVID patient-friendly and a fool-proof system has been developed by the State Government to prevent hoarding, black-marketing and pilferage of Remdesivir drug. The online system will ensure equitable distribution of the drug among patients and also will bring in a systemic change in how the drug is procured, allotted and administered to the end-patient.

The innovativeness of the system is that as soon as vial has been issued against a patient’s name, the patient or the patient attendant receives and SMS that the drug has been issued under his/her name. It also enables the patients to alert the authorities if they don’t get the drug that has been procured under his/her name.

As per a circular issued by State Chief Secretary P. Ravikumar, the Government has set up a Special War Room to ensure rational supply and distribution of Remdesivir and oxygen. IAS Officer Avinash Menon, who is the Additional Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and V.D. Nishchith, Joint Controller of Accounts, Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project (KSHIP), PWD have been appointed as Nodal Officer and Assistant Nodal Officer respectively and the system has been developed by the War Room and was launched on May 7.

Today last date: The State Authorities till now were accepting manual requests from hospitals for the supply of Remdesivir and from May 14 (today) the manual system will cease to exist and hospitals have to procure the drug through the online system that has been developed with multiple checks and balances.

Realising that there has been a huge gap between the demand and the supply of Remdesivir, the State has already declared that the drug will only be supplied directly from the Government to the end-user.  

A 24×7 Helpline number 89517-55722 has been setup to provide the information about hospital wise allocation of Remdesivir and also collect requirement for Oxygen. The system has been jointly developed by Avinash Menon and Nishchith in coordination with National Informatics Centre (NIC), Government of India.

It is a system-based approach for online indenting and distribution and the method aims at providing complete transparency, accountability, traceability and tracking of Remdesivir drug to the last mile — to the patients admitted at private hospitals. While the State takes care of Government patients in Government hospitals and also Government patients in private hospitals through Suvarna Aarogya Suraksha Trust (SAST), the indenting system has been developed for private hospital patients.

How the system works: The system is open to only those private hospitals registered under Karnataka Private Medical Establishment (KPME) Act, 2007 and as a first step they have to register through the one-time online data collection form available at https://kpme.karnataka.gov.in/ and can indent multiple times as per the requirement after logging into the portal. May 14 is also the last date for hospitals to register.

The system has been designed to obtain the identity of COVID patients by entering the SRF (Specimen Referral Form) ID or the District Patient Code. The system draws the name, age, gender and the phone number used for generation of SRF ID at the time of testing from the back-end and the hospital must then enter the in-patient number, date of admission, CT score and type of bed occupied.

The hospital must enter the quantity of indent for each private patient who needs Remdesivir and the online application allows a maximum of six vials to be raised for each patient.

Jurisdictional drugs controller mapped: The indent is then forwarded automatically to the respective mapped District Assistant Drugs Controller who will ensure that the distribution of the drugs is made as per the indent — pro-rata basis — and also based on availability of the drug from the supplier. Hospitals cannot claim the drug without linking it to a patient and after procurement and they cannot store the drug.

As per the existing treatment protocol, each patient can be administered maximum of six vials and the hospitals can allot the drug to the patient. As soon as the hospital allots the drug to a patient, an automated SMS is sent to the patient or the attendant whose mobile number has been used to generate the SRF ID. The SMS will carry the details like the quantity of vials issued to the patient by the respective private hospital.

Duplication avoided: The system ensures that hospitals mandatorily utilises the stock allocated for them at the earliest in order to raise fresh indent and duplication is avoided as Remdesivir cannot be re-indented against the names of the patients who have already been administered the drug. The system also pulls out back-end data from SAST and if a patient has already been administered the drug, the hospital cannot indent in his/her name.

An interesting feature is that the hospitals have to enter the consumed Remdesivir stocks in the portal and those hospitals that do not use the stock or do not show drug utilisation will not receive any fresh stock until the existing stock is utilised.

57 Mysuru private hospitals register for drug procurement

By developing this fool-proof and a water-tight system, Special War Room Nodal Officers Avinash Menon and Nishchith have applied brakes on unscrupulous use, profiteering, hoarding, black-marketing and pilferage of the drug that is considered vital to treat COVID patients.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, Nishchith said that the transparent system, with multiple checks and balances, ensures that there are no unscientific claims. “The SMS sent to the patient after the drug is procured by a particular hospital under his/her name, provides a link to give feedback and also lodge a complaint if the doctor or hospital doesn’t administer the dose,” he said.

He added that it is a small attempt to ensure that the drug is equitably distributed and administered. “We have made it a citizen-centric initiative,” he said. There are over 3,269 recognised hospitals in the State that will come under the system after they register in the KPME portal.

In Mysuru, 57 hospitals have registered till last evening and of them five have indented requirement. “We urge all hospitals to register and indent Remdesivir drug through this portal. As an incentive, we assure that 90 percent of the indents will be honoured. Also, today, May 14 is the last day for registration,” he said.