The Delhi High Court has intensified focus on improving healthcare delivery in the capital by calling for immediate, real-time sharing of hospital bed availability and broader use of digital health systems to support emergency response and patient care.
In hearings initiated on public interest grounds, a Division Bench urged authorities to ensure that current information on bed occupancy — including general wards, intensive care units and other medical facilities — is collected and shared dynamically through digital platforms.
The court noted that integrating hospital data digitally can significantly enhance patient care and reduce delays in treatment, particularly during emergencies and high patient inflows.
The judiciary underscored that today’s fragmented reporting mechanisms leave gaps in how quickly bed availability and other medical facility data reach clinicians, ambulance services and patients. To bridge this gap, the Bench directed that the NextGen e-Hospital platform, a government digital health system, be fully implemented and utilised by hospitals across the city. The platform is designed to integrate key hospital functions — from admissions and outpatient records to billing and treatment histories — and improve the continuity of care through seamless data sharing.
Although about 38 government hospitals are already onboarded to the system, the court noted that key processes such as admissions and discharges are still partly managed manually, undermining the platform’s ability to provide real-time updates.
Authorities were asked to accelerate the integration of these critical workflows, expand training for hospital staff, and explore onboarding private hospitals to strengthen the system’s reach and reliability.
Public access to up-to-date hospital information was also highlighted as crucial for timely decision-making. The court stressed the importance of launching a mobile application linked to the digital platform, enabling patients, caregivers, doctors and emergency services to view real-time bed availability and related medical data without delay.
The call for real-time bed data comes against a backdrop of broader healthcare reforms pursued in the capital, including expansion of digital health infrastructure and efforts to centralise health records under the National Digital Health framework. Delhi’s digital health initiatives, such as the Health Information Management System (HIMS) based on the e-Hospital software, already aim to eliminate physical queues for hospital services and link patient records with unique health identifiers to improve transparency and efficiency.
By pushing for full deployment of digital tools and faster, real-time reporting of critical hospital data, the High Court is underscoring how technology can play a key role in strengthening public healthcare delivery. Ensuring that bed availability and other vital health indicators are instantly accessible is expected to ease emergency responses, optimise resource allocation and improve overall patient outcomes in the capital.
