15 August. The MEDiscuss CDSS is soft-launching today, built for the units, the drugs and the guidance we actually use in Indian wards.
Version 1.3, in force from 14 August 2026. Applies to mediscuss.org/cdss.
The CDSS works fully without an account. Every calculator, algorithm and pathway is open to anyone, and nothing on this site is behind a sign-in.
Signing in is optional. It adds three things: saved calculations, favourite tools, and the ability to compare the same patient's values over time.
Dr Shashikiran Umakanth, MEDiscuss, Udupi, Karnataka.
Questions, requests and complaints: admin@mediscuss.org
| What | Why it exists | How long it is kept |
|---|---|---|
| Your email address | To send your sign-in code, and to identify your account | Until you delete your account |
| A one-way hash of each sign-in code | So a code can be checked without the code itself being stored | About a day after the code expires |
| The IP address of the device that requested a code | To limit how many codes can be requested, so this form cannot be used to send mail to strangers | About a day, with the record above |
| The number of wrong attempts on a code | So a code cannot be guessed | With the record above |
| The date you created the account, and the date you last used it | Security, and automatic deletion of dormant accounts | Until you delete your account |
| The date your sign-in address was last changed, if it ever was | So you can see that it happened. It is the only sign you would get if somebody else moved your account | Until you delete your account |
| A display name, if you choose to set one | So the site can address you, and to draw your initials as an avatar | Until you delete your account |
| Your speciality, if you choose one from the list | So tools can be ordered by relevance to you later. It is a choice from a fixed list, never a text box | Until you delete your account |
| Which tools you have marked as favourites, and which you have used recently | The favourites and recently used lists | Until you delete your account |
| For a saved calculation: the numbers, selections and tick-boxes you entered, which tool, and the date | So you can look at it again and compare | 24 months, then deleted automatically |
| A patient key: an unreadable value your browser calculates from the patient label you type | So your saved calculations for one patient group together | With the calculation, 24 months |
| A random value belonging to your account, used to calculate that key | So the same label produces the same key for you, and a different one for anybody else | Until you delete your account |
To provide the features named above to you, and to let the doctor who runs this site see how it is being used. It is not used for research, is not used to train anything, is not sold, and is not shared with any third party, other than the two services named next.
The CDSS admin has access to these, for each account:
The admin cannot see:
He can also close an account, which deletes it and everything in it. That is the only way to end somebody's access to this site.
Separately from accounts, and for every visitor whether signed in or not, this site uses:
Neither receives anything you type into a tool, your patient labels, your saved calculations, or your email address. They are used to see which tools clinicians actually use, which is what decides what gets built and reviewed next.
You give consent by signing in, which is a deliberate act you can decline at no cost, since every tool works without it.
You can withdraw it at any time by deleting your account, using the person icon at the top of any page. Deleting your account removes your email address, your favourites and recently used tools, and your saved calculations with their patient keys. It is immediate and it cannot be undone. You do not need to ask us and you do not need to explain.
Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 you may:
Your account is identified by an email address, and email addresses stop working — people finish their training and lose an institutional mailbox. You can move your account to a different address from your account page. Everything comes with it: your favourites, your saved calculations, and the way they are matched to each patient.
Do it before you lose access to your current mailbox. The change needs a code sent to the new address and a session started from the old one, so it only works while you can still read both.
We do not email your old address to tell you it happened, and here is why: making the change requires being signed in, which already required reading a code sent to that mailbox. Anybody who could do it already has your email. Instead, the date of the last change is shown on your account page, permanently. If you see a date there you do not recognise, tell us.
Twenty-four months is chosen because the point of saving a calculation is to compare it with the next one, and a shorter limit would delete exactly the reading an annual review wants to compare against.
Sign-in credentials and the database configuration are stored above the public area of the server. The patient key is calculated using a secret held in a separate file, so a copy of the database alone cannot be used to work out which patient a saved calculation belongs to. Connections use HTTPS. There are no passwords to steal.
The patient label you type stays in the browser you type it into. On a shared or ward computer, use the Clear button or sign out when you have finished, exactly as you would with any other clinical system.
The values you type into a tool are kept in the browser tab while you work, so a reload or a mistaken tap does not lose them. They are discarded when you close the tab and are not written to the computer's disk, so they are not left behind for the next person who opens the same tool.
If a breach affects your data we will tell you without delay, and tell you plainly what was exposed and what was not. We will report it to the Data Protection Board of India within 72 hours of becoming aware of it.
Write to admin@mediscuss.org. We aim to answer within seven days. If you are not satisfied, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
The version and date are at the top. If we change what is collected or what it is used for, we will say so here and tell anyone with an account before the change takes effect.
