mSwasthya: A mobile-enabled personal health record management system

The increase in number of hospitals with functional hospital management information systems has helped to increase efficiency and quality of care, thereby improving healthcare service delivery. However, with the prevalent issues that the Indian healthcare industry is still grappling with, there is a growing need for each citizen´s proactive responsibility towards managing his/her health. Moreover, with changes in lifestyle and with increase in the occurrence of cardio vascular diseases and chronic ailments, the patients need to adopt a preventive style of treatment for managing their own personal health. This has led to the emergence of a personal health record (PHR), which is focused on a citizen-centric healthcare system rather than an institution-centric system. This paper highlights mSwasthya, which is a mobile-enabled personal health record management system designed for individuals. The PHR as part of mSwasthya is integrated with various health, wellness and fitness-oriented mobile applications, which the user can install and use them `on-the-fly´ as part of their daily routines to manage their own health.