Digital Health Mission

 Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday Sept 27, 2021 announced the nationwide rollout of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), a scheme that will enable Indians to create and access digital health records.

The mission, under which every Indian will get a unique 14-digit health identification (ID) number, has been renamed the Pradhan Mantri Digital Health Mission (PM-DHM).

“PM Narendra Modi to announce nationwide rollout of Pradhan Mantri Digital Health Mission on September 27. Under this, a unique digital health ID will be provided to the people, which will contain all the health records of the person," Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had tweeted on Thursday.

The ID will be created using an Aadhar Card or the beneficiary’s mobile number, and will serve as an identifier to pull relevant health records.

A government official involved in the making of NDHM said the PM-DHM will act as a “one-stop solution" for all healthcare needs of the common man. It aims to develop the necessary backbone to support an integrated digital health infrastructure in the country.

The mission will create electronic medical records (EMR) for each individual, according to the NDHM’s website, which will allow doctors to track data over time, easily identify which patients are due for preventive screenings or checkups, check how their patients are doing on certain parameters (such as blood pressure readings) and monitor and improve overall quality of care within the practice.

The project was first launched in pilot phase in the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.

•How Will a Health ID Work?

The scheme consists of four essential blocks — unique digital health ID, healthcare professionals registry, health facility registry and electronic health records.

The first objective of the scheme is to create a digital environment for healthcare via these four blocks. At a later stage, the government plans to integrate telemedicine and e-pharmacies.

A Unique Health I’d, according to the government, is important to standardise the process of identification of an individual across healthcare providers. “The Health ID will be used for the purposes of uniquely identifying persons, authenticating them, and threading their health records (only with the informed consent of the patient) across multiple systems and stakeholders."

•Information required to create a unique health I’d

To generate ID, the system will collect certain basic details including demographic and location, family/relationship, and contact details.

•How Will Health Records be Created?

In the first step, a health ID will be created after which health information from an individual will be taken. This information will then be linked to the health ID, after taking the consent from those individuals. The information termed as ‘Personal Health Record-System (PHR)’ will enable an individual to manage information about his or her healthcare, according to the NDHM’s website. This includes viewing of a longitudinal record, consisting of all health data, lab reports, treatment details, discharge summaries across one or multiple health facilities. 

This Mission will create interoperability within the digital health ecosystem, similar to the role played by the Unified Payments Interface in revolutionising payments, said the release, which added that citizens will only be a click away from accessing healthcare .