BMC to Launch Real-Time Bed Availability Dashboard as Mumbai Civic Hospitals Undergo Major Digital & Infrastructure Upgrade

The BMC is developing a centralised digital platform that will provide live updates on bed occupancy across major hospitals, peripheral centres, and maternity facilities.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has announced a modernisation plan for Mumbai’s civic hospitals, anchored by a real-time dashboard displaying bed availability across its public healthcare network to help patients locate vacant beds faster during emergencies and reduce admission delays.

The move builds on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, when real-time hospital resource visibility became critical to patient movement and emergency triage.

Under the new initiative, the BMC is developing a centralised digital platform that will provide live updates on bed occupancy across major hospitals, peripheral centres, and maternity facilities.

The dashboard is expected to cover general beds as well as critical care capacity, such as ICU and NICU beds, allowing patients, caregivers, and referring facilities to identify available capacity without making repeated phone calls.

Officials say the system is currently under testing. “At present, patients and hospital administration have to call each hospital and ask if a bed is available, especially in cases of ICU and NICU. With this dashboard, anyone will be able to check bed availability and can move the patients immediately without wasting time.”

The digital initiative comes alongside broader infrastructure upgrades across the BMC hospital ecosystem. The civic body plans to install advanced MRI systems in key institutions, including BYL Nair Hospital, strengthen ICU and essential care infrastructure in smaller hospitals, and redeploy medical equipment purchased during the pandemic to improve asset utilisation.

In parallel, the corporation is continuing its longer-term hospital expansion strategy, with more than 2,000 additional beds planned through suburban redevelopment and new facilities, while broader BMC health budget allocations have already earmarked funding for capacity expansion and super-speciality services.

Mumbai’s flagship civic hospitals, including KEM Hospital, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, and Cooper Hospital, will remain the city’s principal tertiary care centres.

However, BMC is increasingly focused on converting peripheral hospitals into stronger multi-speciality facilities to reduce unnecessary referrals and ease pressure on overloaded central institutions.

The BMC has also announced procurement reforms, with medical equipment and medicine purchases to be routed through the Government of India’s GeM portal to improve transparency and supply efficiency.

Additional directives include stricter oversight of public-private partnership services and improved medicine availability across facilities.

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