HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT UNIT

The National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) is the largest teaching hospital in Sri Lanka and the final referral centre in the country consisting of 3500 patient beds with in-ward patient admissions of more than 250,000 per year. It is one of the busiest places in Colombo catering for over 5000 patients a day. The National Hospital features many finer specialities in Health care and most of these specialities are only available at NHSL.

The Health Information Management Unit (HIMU) of NHSL is led by a Consultant in Health Informatics. There are two medical officers with a post-graduate qualification in Health Informatics and postgraduate trainees in health informatics who are working towards improving the healthcare services provided by the hospital by applying digital health solutions to the healthcare workflow.

Under this scope, HIMU has already implemented the Hospital Health Information Management System (HHIMS) with the help of the Information & Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA). Services of HHIMS have now been expanded by integrating it with the Picture Archiving & Communication System (PACS). The implementation of health information systems, clinical workflow adaptation, change management, user training, requirement gathering for future system improvements, further improvement of health information system functionality, and new system implementation are conducted by the staff of HIMU.

The vision of the Health Information Management Unit is to improve the healthcare services provided by the hospital through digital health interventions.

Current staff:

Previous staff:

Web Link to Poison Information Centre- www.toxbaselanka.info

The National Poisons Information Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka was established on 1st of January 1988 with the assistance of the International development Research Centre, Canada.  It is situated in National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo under the Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition.  This centre is the first to be established in South-East Asia as a Poisons Information Centre with the effort of Prof. Ravindra Fernando who pioneered the establishment of the unit.  The National Poisons Information Centre has completed twenty six years of service.  The Centre now rendering its service nation-wide twenty four hours throughout the year.

The centre is now a full member of the World Federation of the Association of Clinical Toxicology and Poisons Control centres, and association affiliated to the World Health Organization.  In addition NPIC have the exclusive privilege to access the world class UK toxbase and Thailand poison information network.

It serves the entire country by providingup-to-date medicalinformation on all kinds of poison, aspects of poisoningand on acute poisoning management in Sri Lanka.  NPIC mainly provide clinical toxicology information related to hazard identification, clinical features of poisoning, diagnosis and management to the medical professionals.  Within the period of last twenty six years the centre has provided in response to 17493 enquiries made to the centre by medical professionals’ information regarding clinical management of poison exposure patients.

Health awareness and prevention of poisoning is one of the main scopes of the center. The center has freely distributed, printed leaflets, posters and stickers on prevention of chemicals, drugs, pesticides, plant and snake bites poisoning, identification of poisons and prevention of household poisoning and first-aid management to the general public and healthcare institutions. Furthermore, Centre is conducting awareness programs to the general public on prevention of poisoning as contributing to the National Health Week.

For the first time in the history of NPIC, official logo with its own identity for the center was introduced.  Four newsletters were also published with the approval of the Ministry of Health in year 2013 and 2014.  Newsletter 1 and 2 published in English medium was circulated among the all health care institutions and medical professionals.  The objective was to keep abreast the toxicology knowledge among the medical professionals by disseminating current cutting edge knowledge in toxicology spheres.  Newsletter 3 and 4 named as “Visa Vimasuma” and “Visa Vimansa” published in Sinhala medium were widely applauded by the among general public, school children etc.

The center has published and distributed updated medical book on Management of Poisoning.  In addition to this, Guidelines for Management of Paracetamol poisoning, Poisonous plants, Venomous snakes and Household poisoning, Banned chemical of Sri Lanka and Pesticide poisoning in Sri Lanka:  Review of the eighties and outlook for nineties were also published and freely distributed to all state hospitals throughout the Island as reference materials for the medical professionals.

NPIC also conducting in-service training programs and lectures for health care personnel and other relevant sectors.  The center has started for the first time to assist advance level students on their A/L projects to develop research methodology in the sphere of poisoning for their university entrance assignments by providing clinical data, leaflets, posters and handouts. Currently, critical care post graduate trainee doctors are experiencing week long comprehensive training in toxicology and poisoning management. Medical students are also doing their elective appointments for a one month period in the center.

Use of Agrochemicals and pesticides was identified as a major health problem in Sri Lanka.   In view to prevent pesticides and chemical poisoning in the country, the center provides safety evaluation reports with the expert advisory panel on new agricultural chemicals and pesticides introducing to the market with the request from the Pesticide Registration Office in Sri Lanka.

Prevalence of chronic kidney disease of unknown origin possibly caused by agrochemicals and heavy metals are currently identified as a major health concern in the country.  Therefore, NPIC launched a preliminary studies to find out the relationship of CKDu with heavy metals in the year 2014.

Poison centre has planned to establish a ground-breaking website on poison information in near future (Toxbase - Sri Lanka) for upgrade the quality of medical care related to acute and chronic poisoning, which will help to obtain clinical information with rapid access including advice on potentially hazardous doses and appropriate clinical management for the medical professionals.

Poison Centre Team

Among patients that admitted to the accident unit, management of patients with spinal cord injury is more complicated & their survival, reducing complication & rehabilitation are challenging. Few years ago survival of these patients was a difficult task. But now using the modern medicine ,they gain ability to live some years amid disabilities. There are special tasks to complete in this mission.

Main requirement is to have a specially trained rehabilitation team & a special treatment unit for their treatments . In developed countries, these kinds of units were started in 1930s.

Patients with spinal cord injury, when treating along with other injuries there is tendency to gain side effects. Therefore, necessity of a special treatment team arises.

Realizing these need, consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr.Narendra Pinto, who wanted to follow the  idea of Dr.Chandana Karunathilaka, established a separate ward for patient with spinal cord injuries on 06th April 2011. (Concurrently Asian Conference of Spinal Cord Injuries was held in Sri Lanka in 2011).

Mr.P.K.A.Kithsiri, who is a national trainer for nurses, was appointed by Ministry of Health to train Nurses for this special task. Thereafter, this ward, ward 53 developed as a special unit.

Members of the Unit,

• Consultants & other doctors

• Nurses

• Physiotherapists

• Occupational therapists

• Social service officer

• Minor staff

Other specialties of the ward

• Nurses, therapists & Minor staff have been given a special train.

• Trained nurses visits to ETU when necessary.

• well organized rehabilitation team.

• Patients receive  special food according to nutritionists’ advices.

• Supplement of special instrument require for prevention of complications  like bed sores.  

(Special mattress, beds & rehabilitation instruments)

• Mind relaxing environment

(Mini library, opportunities for sports like Carrom, facilities for handicrafts)

• Special activities are organized.

Throughout the year other than the day to day treatments.
Celebration of New Year, Wesak, Day of disable persons, Musical programme & Christmas.
Staff’s dedication for these activities should be appreciated.

• Family members of the patients receive a special training regarding patient’s urinary control & other complication. And also they are given an opportunity to meet Consultants if necessary. They are provided with printed hand bills .

• Patients, who left the hospital, were given a Hot line number for discuss their problems. 0112 685814 &

Already shown the necessity of  this unit under following.

• Patient can leave the hospital early.

• It reduces government expenditure as side accident / effects are minimum.

• Quality of the service is high. (with special training)

• Researches & academic activities are feasible as availability of data regarding the patients.

Already the unit has given an opportunity to gain knowledge for trainees of various fields.

Eg :-

• Medical students

• Nursing students

• Physiotherapists

• Social service officials

• Post graduate doctors

In addition, trained officers have contributed to training programmes island wide

Eg: - Programmes held at, hospitals of Batticalo, Vavniya, Rathnapurra & Ragama.

Scarcity of adequate space for expansion & development of the unit is a Main problem. It is necessary to have a adequate space for handle Wheelchair.

As the first unit of these kinds, established in a teaching hospital in Sri Lanka, our vision is to upgrade this unit & train the staffs of the other teaching hospitals for this special task. A special note has to be made on the  ultimate service given with  lack of equipment . This unit should have the ultra modern equipment to face the future.