LAHORE: The University of Health Sciences (UHS) has launched a province-wide digital platform, PRIME, to bring medical and health professions education, clinical training and competency assessment under an integrated monitoring system.
Provincial Minister for Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Khawaja Salman Rafique inaugurated the platform at a ceremony held at UHS on Friday. Titled Health Professions Education – Progress, Research, Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation (HPE-PRIME), the initiative aims to improve transparency, accountability and quality assurance through digital monitoring and competency-based assessment.
The platform will initially cover postgraduate medical and dental training, with its first phase encompassing approximately 3,300 MS, MD and MDS trainees enrolled in 33 training institutions across Punjab. Around 1,100 supervisors will also be registered on the portal.
It will replace conventional paper-based logbooks with electronic records of clinical cases, procedures, attendance, rotations, research activities and workplace-based assessments. Supervisors will be able to verify trainees’ clinical and academic activities, provide feedback and monitor their progress, while institutional dashboards will enable UHS to oversee training standards and identify deficiencies.
Addressing the ceremony, Khawaja Salman Rafique said improving healthcare was among the top priorities of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s government. He stressed that modern hospitals and medical facilities must be supported by a well-trained healthcare workforce capable of making sound clinical decisions and providing quality patient care. “Medical education is not merely about awarding degrees or increasing the number of doctors. Its real objective is to produce competent professionals who can make appropriate clinical decisions and deliver quality treatment,” he said.
He appreciated UHS for developing an effective digital monitoring mechanism and expressed the hope that the platform would bring substantial improvement in postgraduate training. He also commended the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies, faculty members and the IT team for their efforts in developing the initiative.
The minister said UHS was overseeing undergraduate and postgraduate training across approximately 230 institutions, making systematic monitoring, reliable data and regular assessment of professional competencies essential. He said information generated through PRIME would help identify training gaps, support evidence-based decisions and improve the performance of supervisors and institutions.
UHS Vice Chancellor Maj Gen Prof. Sohail Sabir (Retd) said the platform would move health professions education beyond conventional record-keeping towards a system based on demonstrated clinical competence and verified professional skills.
He said the initiative had initially been conceived and developed during the tenures of former UHS vice chancellors Prof. Javed Akram and Prof. Ahsan Waheed Rathore, whose contributions he acknowledged. The present administration had taken the project forward towards its implementation, he added.
Prof. Sohail Sabir said the second phase would extend the platform to undergraduate MBBS and BDS programmes and house-job training, covering approximately 33,875 students and house officers across 60 medical and dental colleges. The third phase would bring Nursing, Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences programmes into the system, covering around 31,734 students enrolled in 180 institutions.
UHS Director Postgraduate Studies Prof. Muhammad Asif Naveed briefed the participants on the portal’s operational features and implementation framework. He explained that the system would incorporate quarterly continuous internal assessments, workplace-based assessments, including Mini-CEX, Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS) and Case-Based Discussions, alongside research monitoring and academic activity records.
The platform will also include a learning management system and institutional and university-level dashboards, enabling supervisors and administrators to monitor training progress, evaluate performance and take corrective measures during the training period rather than relying solely on final examinations.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
Source: brecorder
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