Project to link CT, MRI scans in TN delayed

A year has gone by since the deadline for linking CT scan and MRI scan reports from all government hospitals across the State ended, but the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC) is yet to provide the infrastructure for automation of the machines.

The initiative, which the State Health Department mooted in January 2018, was aimed at benefitting the public health centres that do not have a radiologist round the clock to allow access of reports.

The plan was to connect more than 70 centres on a single platform that could be accessed at any public health facility in the State. Though the work on providing connectivity was begun in June 2018 and was supposed to complete a month after that, less than 50 percent of the work has been completed so far. “At Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH), we do at least 50 MRI scans every day and an even bigger number of CT scans. As there are multiple specialists and the reports are delivered to the patients directly, the facility is open round the clock. However, in other places like suburbs, rural and hilly areas, specialists are not available all the time. There, the treatment is delayed as the reports are not available,” said Dr R Ravi, professor and director of Barnard Institute of Radiology,RGGGH.

The plan is to store the reports in a cloud database that can be obtained immediately in case of an emergency scan in hospitals that does not have radiologists. But the connectivity was not provided for many centres and only few centres have gone through trial runs, added Dr Ravi. Officials said they are not sure when it would becompleted.

A TNMSC official said that connecting the scan reports would have helped in easy transfer of results instead of direct collection of reports that might get delayed in the absence of specialists, especially during odd hours.

“However, after the initiative was launched, there were technical glitches and all the centres could not be provided with the infrastructure,” said theofficial.