India to introduce digital health ID cards

NEW DELHI: India is ready to digitalize its common multi-payer healthcare system to create “equitable entry to well being providers,” the federal government mentioned on Thursday.
In 2018, India’s Nationwide Well being Authority launched a nationwide medical insurance program known as Ayushman Bharat to offer healthcare to round 500 million low-income earners within the nation. The federal government’s new initiative — the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission — is an extension of the insurance coverage scheme that can see each citizen issued with a well being ID card containing their medical information, which might be saved in a central database.
The scheme was launched earlier this week by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hailed it as a “revolutionary change in India’s healthcare amenities.”
Chatting with the media on Thursday, Nationwide Well being Authority chief Dr. R.S. Sharma mentioned: “We’re making a community of service supply by way of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which is able to create reasonably priced, equitable, high quality well being providers for the individuals.”
India spends round 1 % of its GDP on well being — among the many lowest share of any main economic system. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed 450,000 Indians between March and Could, served to spotlight the nation’s long-standing issues with its healthcare system and lack of entry to it.
“We now have handed by way of a really tough time, and other people have realized how essential well being providers are,” Dr. Sharma mentioned, including that with 1.18 billion registered cell phone numbers — 800 million of that are used on-line — the nation’s digital infrastructure is powerful sufficient to help the digitalization challenge.
Every well being ID card will include its holder’s medical historical past, together with diagnoses and physician observations, which may be shared with any hospital within the nation. Thus far, 100,000 playing cards have been distributed in a pilot challenge in six Indian states.
The scheme has been met with skepticism in some quarters.
“It won’t serve the (essential) objective of offering well being providers to the lots,” Mumbai-based public well being skilled Dr. T. Sundararaman advised Arab Information. “It’s going to have a restricted position to play.”