By Abdul Ghani

The Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA) plans to launch a Health Facility Availability Tracker (HFAT) to provide citizens with real-time information about the availability and capacity of healthcare facilities across the federal capital.

According to an official document available with Wealth Pakistan, the proposed system is part of IHRA’s future reform agenda to strengthen digital healthcare regulation and improve public access to essential health information.

Under the initiative, citizens will be able to identify the nearest healthcare facilities and access real-time information on the availability of key medical resources, including hospital beds, ICU/CCU capacity, ventilators and other essential healthcare services.

The proposed HFAT is expected to help patients and their families make better-informed decisions about where to seek treatment, particularly during emergencies when timely information about available beds and critical-care facilities can be crucial.

The authority has identified digital transformation as a key institutional requirement, noting that further digitisation and integration of regulatory processes are needed to improve efficiency, transparency, real-time monitoring and evidence-based decision-making.

The health facility tracker is therefore envisaged as part of a broader shift towards data-driven healthcare regulation, allowing regulatory authorities to gain better visibility of healthcare capacity while giving citizens easier access to information.

IHRA's future reform roadmap also envisages the development of regulatory dashboards and analytical tools to monitor inspections, complaints, licensing status, enforcement actions and healthcare quality indicators.

The authority has further proposed the expansion of digital health monitoring and real-time monitoring systems to improve regulatory oversight, healthcare accessibility and emergency response coordination across Islamabad.

The proposed reforms aim to move healthcare regulation beyond traditional inspection-based oversight towards a digitally integrated system, where real-time data can support both regulatory decisions and public access to healthcare services.

Credit: INP-WealthPk