AIIMS Delhi will go fully digital from April 2023, will accept Smartcards, UPI payments

To make a patient-friendly initiative, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi has decided to start digital payments from April 1 next year.

“AIIMS New Delhi introduces #SmartCard in addition to UPI and card payments at all counters. All payments at AIIMS to go completely digital from April 1, 2023,” it said in a tweet.

The institute has also decided to promote the use of Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) IDs for outpatient department (OPD) registrations of new and follow-up cases.

According to a desk memorandum issued on November 15, this will entail the adoption of the National Health Authority (NHA) Scan and Share QR Code solution in all AIIMS-New Delhi DPOs to facilitate fast check-in and provide a queue number to patients on Arrival.

Dedicated counters and kiosks will operate at least from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to facilitate the creation of ABHA IDs for patients without smartphones.

This project will be piloted in Rajkumari Amrit Kaur’s new OPD from November 21st and resumed in mission mode from January 1st in all AIIMS-New Delhi OPDs.

“It has been noted that patients visiting AIIMS OPDs are queuing long for registration. Manual entry of patient demographics is done for registration despite the availability of Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) with many patients.

“At the time of registration using ABHA ID, OTP is often delayed. The maximum number of OTP resend attempts is also limited to three times,” the memorandum reads.

The NHA’s Scan and Share QR Code solution has shown promising results in reducing the time needed for check-ins and has also helped streamline the patient journey upon arrival at the hospital, according to the memorandum.

The solution is also biometric and facial authentication enabled to enable sharing of ABHA ID details.