Prelims cum Mains Social Issues

Government panel floats digital ID for health records, may link Aadhaar

In News:

  • A committee was constituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to create an implementation framework for the National Health Stack (NHS) proposed by NITI Aayog last year.
  • The committee has recommended the setting up of a National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) to manage enormous amounts of health data generated by Ayushman Bharat, the Centre’s flagship health programme as a part of the National Digital Health Blueprint.

News Context:

  • The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently released the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) report in the public domain for inputs from various stakeholder.
  • NDHB recognizes  the  need  to  establish  a  specialized  organization,  called National Digital Health Mission(NDHM) that can drive the implementation of the Blueprint, and promote and facilitate the evolution of NDHE.

Image result for digital id for health record

Background: National Health Policy 2017

  • The National Health Policy 2017 envisages creation of a digital health technology eco-system aiming   at   developing   an   integrated   health   information   system  that  serves  the  needs  of  all  stakeholders  and  improves  efficiency,  transparency and citizens’ experience with linkage across public and private healthcare.
  • Technology deployment and data-driven decision-making in healthcare has been inadequate in India.
  • In the absence of holistic, comprehensive and interoperable digital architecture, the use of technology in the health sector continues to grow in an uneven manner and in silos.
  • Against this background,  the  Committee constituted  by  the  Health Ministry to create an implementation framework for the National Health Stack (NHS),  has come  up with the National  Digital  Health Blueprint,  after  surveying  the  global  best  practices  in  adoption of digital technologies

 

National Health Stack

  • The NHS is proposed to be the country’s first futuristic nationally shared digital healthcare infrastructure usable by both the Centre and states across public and private sectors.
  • The NHS will facilitate collection of comprehensive healthcare data across the country.
  • Subsequent data analysis on NHS will not only allow policy makers to experiment with policies, detect fraud in health insurance, measure outcomes and move towards smart policy making, but also engage market players (NGOs, researchers, watchdog organisations) to innovate and build relevant services and fill the gaps.
  • It is now  conceivable to aim for digital health records for all citizens by the year 2022.

 

National Digital  Health Blueprint

  • The NDHB focuses on providing an efficient and affordable health coverage through a wide-range of data and infrastructure services by leveraging open digital systems that will ensure security and privacy of personal information.

Vision of NDHB

  • To create a National Digital Health Eco-system that supports Universal Health Coverage in an efficient, accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely and safe manner, through provision of a wide-range of data, information and infrastructure services, duly leveraging open, interoperable, standards-based digital systems, and ensuring the security, confidentiality and privacy of health-related personal information.

Objectives:

  • To establish state-of-the-art  digital  health  systems,  for  managing  the  core digital health data, and the infrastructure required for its seamless exchange.
  • To establish National and Regional Registries to create Single Source of Truth in respect   of   Clinical   Establishments,   Healthcare   Professionals,   Health Workersand Pharmacies.
  • To enforce adoption of open standards by all the actors in the National Digital Health Eco-system.
  • To create a system of Personal Health Records, based on international standards, easily accessible to the citizens and to the healthcare professionals and services providers, based on citizen-consent.
  • To promote development of enterprise-class health application systems with a special  focus  on  addressing  the  Sustainable  Development  Goals  related  to the health sector
  • To adopt the best principles of cooperative federalism while working with the States and Union Territories for the realization of the Vision
  • To ensure  that  the healthcare institutions and professionals in the private sector participate actively in the building of the NDHE, through a combination of prescription and incentivization
  • To ensure National Portability in the provision of health services
  • To promote the use of Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Systems by health professionals and practitioners
  • To promote a better management of the health sector leveraging Health Data Analytics and Medical Research
  • To provide for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of Governance at all levels through digital tools in the area of Performance Management
  • To support effective steps being taken for ensuring Quality of Healthcare
  • Leveraging the Information Systems already existing in the health sector

 

News Summary:

  • The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) would provide technology to manage and analyse data, and create a system of personal health records and health applications.
  • The role   of   the   NDHM   will   be   to   provide   information   and   data   to   different components  of  the  health  eco-system  to  work  together  and  also  provide  the technological infrastructure for collection and storage of core/ master data through the various registries.
  • Central to the “ecosystem” would be a Personal Health Identifier (PHI) to maintain a Personal Health Record (PHR).
    • Note: The PHI would contain the names of patients and those of their immediate family, date of birth, gender, mobile number, email address, location, family ID and photograph.
  • The committee has suggested to consult Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues Aadhaar, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in the design of the PHI.
  • The committee has also suggested a Command, Control, and Communication Center (CCCC) as a single point of contact in public health emergencies.
  • The new Mission to be autonomous like UIDAI and GSTN (Goods and Services Tax Network). It would be partly funded by the government but will also raise a part of its funding through a transaction fee with private players.
  • The recommendations from the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) have been opened for public comments, which will be considered before the government takes a final decision on this issue.

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: