‘Real-time bed availability info, call centre for COVID management needed’

Infection Control Academy president writes to KTR, says current dashboard doesn’t support patients or decision makers

A State-wide real-time bed availability Dashboard, along with a call centre for COVID triage (sorting) with operators routing the patients based on a simple questionnaire, will enormously reduce the pressure on healthcare workers and unclutter the overcrowded healthcare facilities, said Infection Control Academy of India president B. Ranga Reddy. The triage can identify patients on the basis of various categories — those who don’t need hospitalisation but can be under observation and home care, those who need isolation under supervision, those who need oxygen beds and those who need ventilator beds, he said, in a communication to Minister for IT, Municipal Administration and Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao on Monday. Dr. Reddy, also a honorary professor of School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH), said the current dashboard () is static and doesn’t support either the patients or decision makers. “Fear and anxiety are driving people to make irrational decisions, further escalating the mass hysteria at the moment. While there are certain constraints with bed capacity, medicines etc, it is amplified due to lack of real-time information and ambiguity bringing negative publicity,” he pointed out.