NMC measures to weed out fake faculty and patients in private medical colleges

Hyderabad: In its efforts to improve the regulation of medical education, especially prevent the practice of some medical colleges producing fake faculty and patients during inspections, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on Tuesday has directed all private and government medical colleges to mandatorily implement biometric attendance systems, install CCTV cameras in class rooms and other […]

Hyderabad: In its efforts to improve the regulation of medical education, especially prevent the practice of some medical colleges producing fake faculty and patients during inspections, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on Tuesday has directed all private and government medical colleges to mandatorily implement biometric attendance systems, install CCTV cameras in class rooms and other strategic locations in medical college premises and adopt hospital management information system that will help track inflow of patients.

In a circular to private and government medical colleges, the NMC on Tuesday said it intends to implement Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) and Hospital Management System (HMS) in all medical colleges during August, 2022.

---

“It has also been decided to install 25 cameras in each medical college, which will share live video feed to a command centre in NMC,” the notice said. The regulatory body has released specific locations in medical colleges where CCTV cameras must be installed for remote monitoring.

Some of the vital locations where CCTVs have to be installed include patient registration counters, outpatient departments, attendance marking area, classrooms, pre-anaesthesia areas and recovery areas, pharmacology lab, patient attendant waiting area, emergency and casualty wards, faculty lounge and attendance marking and pathology and microbiology laboratories.

The live visuals from different wings in medical colleges will be available for viewing at a special command and control centre at NMC.

NMC Secretary, Dr Sandhya Bhullar in the notice said the attendance and biometric software have already been developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) and urged medical colleges to make use of the readymade software.

“Implementation of Biometric Attendance System can be used as an effective and convenient digital solution to record the attendance of faculties, senior residents and tutors of medical colleges. All medical colleges must implement the biometric attendance system by August 10, 2022,” the NMC secretary said.

The regulatory body for medical education has also directed medical colleges to appoint a nodal officer who will coordinate the entire biometric attendance system, live feed from the 25 CCTV cameras in medical colleges and hospitals and hospital information systems with the NMC.