Regional Cancer Centre set to be part of digital nerve centre

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Regional Cancer Centre here will become part of the Digital Nerve Centre (DiNC). a national network of leading cancer care centres, in a day or two. Along with RCC, Tata Medical Centre in Mumbai will also become DiNC, a Tata Consultancy Services project aimed at providing quality cancer care at the doorsteps of patients. Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata and Cancer Institute in Chennai are already on the network. "Work on connecting RCC and TMC Mumbai to the network is almost over and the plan is to connect it by Monday. A formal launch will be held later," said a TCS spokesperson.

The Command Centre of the DiNC has been set up at TCS campus in Technopark, where 20 MBBS doctors trained in cancer care and nurses are delayed. More cancer hospitals would be brought to the network in due course, and the number of physicians and nurses at the Command Centre would also be increased. With DiNC all the medical records of the patients of the hospitals in the network will be stored in a centralised digital database. In the case of any emergency for patients staying far away from hospitals, they can contact the command centre, which would give advice to any local doctors on the treatment to be given.

DiNC also helps train patients based on hospital protocols, facilitating appointments for consultation, sending alerts for follow ups and managing medical records for patients. "Our research finds that 52% of doctor’s time is spent in answering patient queries, many of which can be addressed with standardised solutions and can be handled by doctors, nursing staff and paramedics at DiNC," A TCS spokesperson said.