“I want to get a Birth Service Card, but I left my residence booklet at home. What should I do?” A young woman asked anxiously at the Convenient Service Hall of Population and Family Planning in Xiaoxita.
“Don’t worry about it. Your information will be found in the population and family planning information systems on the Internet .Please tell me your name and address. After I have checked it out, you may get your Birth Service Card.”
The staff was operating on the computer proficiently while handling multi-tasks.
In recent years, the information construction of Population and Family Planning in Yichang City is designed to meet the needs of the masses, and to offer initiative follow - up with convenient service. Furthermore, the family planning technical service is extended from community to the individual families to create a 15-minutes convenient service circle for family planning issues supported by the Community Health Station.
Taking Yiling District for example, the district open the convenient service system around the whole district through information construction in recent years, to improve work efficiency and provide more convenient services for the childbearing population. Useful information are published online where one can find anything related to the services offered .The convenience of the online service allows the customers to stay home without leaving their comfort zone.
What is the most difficult work in our life? Family Planning. Where is utmost difficulty in family planning? Information channel is impeded.
There are 11 towns located in mountainous regions and many factors cause difficulties in handling family planning work due to poor transportation, information failures, and the influx of population.
The district creatively adopt the way combining the information construction with the family planning work in order to solve the above problems and to improve the work efficiency, which can become an important strategic measure to push the work forward and serve the people well.
In longitudinal orientation, an information expressway of the population and family planning service comes into being. In recent three years, more than ten million Yuan has been invested to reconstruct the center computer room of the Population and Family Planning Bureau and to equip all the towns and villages with computers, setting up a special powerful service network for population and family planning. In the past, it was quite difficult to build an information network in the remote mountain areas, for several hundred kilometers of fiber-optics would be employed in those areas. Therefore, the district government decided to invest over six million Yuan to make the network available to all the remote mountain areas in 2012. At present, 193 villages in the district have their own computers including the Yangjiawan Village, and Dengcun. Now, the number of the computer information platforms from the Yiling District to the small villages amounts to 260. It takes only a second to send an announcement or a directive to the distant villages.
In lateral orientation, a joint platform is set up between different departments. Besides the constructing of the longitudinal platform from district to village, a lateral joint information platform between the Population and Family Planning Sector and other departments such as the Public Security Department, the Business Sector, the Hygiene Department. However, The Civil Affairs Department is established in the meantime. With the realization of the exchange and sharing of information, they effectively overcome the difficulties of the poor exchange of information sharing among different the departments.
The goal of the informatization construction is to bring more benefits to the population directly in needs. The information network becomes a helpful platform for them, via innovation; a great progress has been made in the application and development of the network especially in the Yiling District.
Firstly, utilizing internet solves the problem of low-quality information. Information accuracy is of great importance in implementing family planning policy. If the information is inaccurate or incomplete, the work of our guidance will not be good enough and the service provided will not be in place. For instance, if a child’s birth date is registered wrong, it will impede him to enjoy his due interests at a proper time, which impairs the masses’ interests. For this reason, the JXPIS has been established in Yiling District to share the information on population and government administration within Hubei Province. The data dynamic updating mechanism has been set up in family planning, public health, civil affairs, public security, industrial and commercial and many other administrative departments. By utilizing information sharing platform, updating and exchanging new information data in relation to family planning daily, the center of population and family planning in the district functions as a pivot, collecting and distributing different departments’ information so that every level can receive the original and most needed information. The total population information coverage rate, key data integrity rate, logical accuracy rate are all reaches over ninety nine percent, providing basic conditions for better and timely service to the public. In 2012, the Yiling District was awarded the title of “National Model Unit for Sunshine Family Planning Statistics”.
Utilizing internet to promote “Sunshine Family Planning Campaign”. In recent years, a population and family planning information network has been established on the basis of internet in the Yiling District. The childbearing policy, award and assistant policy, registration procedure, knowledge of eugenics and nurture are all put on the internet and let under the supervision of the public.
Utilizing internet creates a convenient service platform. In the district, a convenient registration system and “Online Convenient Service Hall” have been established on the basis of provincial population and family planning information system. It is required that the population and family planning administrative departments shall give full play to the querying function and online service function of the internet. Using the information system solves the problem of having several departments’ acknowledgment to get things done and to provide convenient service to the masses. Considering that some of masses don’t know how to use a computer, a toll-free hotline: 400 887 1562 has been opened to the public. Some distinguished experts in family planning field have been invited to answer their queries.
The information network provides an open and transparent platform. Nowadays, by logging into the population and family planning information network, the public can be informed about the various policies and regulations, and can look up the lists of incentives and aids. Moreover, they can learn how to give birth to healthy babies and provide them with the best possible health care and education. It can be said that the openness of the policies and the transparence of the relevant information make it possible for the people of childbearing age more sensible in family planning.
The information network serves as a channel for consultation. Whenever the public meet any difficulty, they can find it simple and convenient to ask for help either by consulting the network platform or by dialing the hotline to be answered by experts.
The information network makes public services much easier so that people don’t have to go to different units to acquire a single certificate now. The network helps simplify the work procedures of the Population and Family Planning Department, while cutting the cost and making their service and guidance more scientific. What’s more, they can avoid human mistakes by uploading the data to the network after the monthly meeting held at different levels within the department. As a convenient and efficient way, the use of the network not only cuts down the expenditure, but also provides detailed basis for its decision-making and guidance. Through the analysis of network data, the department is able to acquire the relevant information about people of childbearing age in time and accordingly provide "personalized service" for each individual, which is more welcome to the public.