Health ministry pushes for national digital health plan

Union health ministry is keen on going ahead with its “digital health” plans

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan (File) Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan | PTI

State of the art digital health systems, national and regional registries for clinical establishments and database of personal health records—the Centre is aiming to achieve this, and more, with its National Digital Health Blueprint.

Even as concerns around data protection and privacy remain unresolved, the Union health ministry is keen on going ahead with its “digital health” plans.

“The need of the hour is to create an ecosystem which can integrate the existing disparate health information systems and show a clear path for the upcoming programmes. There is a need to ensure convergence across these IT systems to monitor and provide health services in a robust and efficient manner. Ministry of health and family welfare has initiated efforts in the direction of a comprehensive, nationwide integrated e-Health system under National Digital Health Blueprint,” Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said on Tuesday.

J. Satyanarayana, former chairman, UIDAI and chairman of the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) Committee, submitted the final NDHB report to Dr. Harsh Vardhan, in New Delhi on Tuesday.

In July this year, the ministry had placed the National Digital Health Blueprint report, based on the global "best practices" in the field of health technology, in the public domain and sought “comments”. The move came about an year after the Niti Aayog released a proposal for the National Health Stack (NHS), describing the components required for the country's digital health needs.

As the proposal needed further examination, the matter was placed before a committee under the chairmanship of Satyanarayana, former secretary, ministry of electronics and information technology, and chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India, to create a “framework and implementation plan” for the NHS. Satyanarayana submitted the final report to the union health minister on Tuesday.

The Union health minister also asked stakeholders to work towards implementing the National Digital Health Blueprint in a “time bound manner”. According to the health ministry, NDHB will provide a common platform for “integration of existing (health) applications” and data that is existing in silos—at public or private health facilities. The Niti Aayog's National Health Stack (NHS) has also defined “clear timelines, targets and resources” required for this digital convergence of healthcare programmes in India, as per the health ministry.

Earlier this year, the Economic Survey 2018-2019 also proposed the idea of a National Health Register. According to this proposal, the health register, with all the necessary “privacy safeguards”, could go a long way in using citizens' health data for “predictive and prescriptive” purposes. The register would be linked to a citizen’s Aadhar card. “As a doctor can access the medical history of a patient from this national health register, this facility would be especially useful in emergency/trauma cases and can potentially save several lives,” according to the document.

This database could be used not just by hospitals and public health centres, but also for surveillance of syndromes, immunisation information systems and electronic laboratory reporting. The database would also include sub-registries for key diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and AIDS, according to the proposal.

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