What is Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)?
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is a flagship scheme of the National Health Authority (NHA). It is a crucial step to making India a ‘Digital Health’ nation, like other developed countries.
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What is the aim of ABDM?
The chief objective of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is to incline the focus of the entire healthcare sector towards digitization. It aims at making healthcare services more accessible and equitable; a major step towards achieving Universal Health Coverage for all. The key to unlocking all the benefits of ABDM is ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account). Creation of ABHA and its integration with health-tech apps is intended to bring about better health outcomes.
What does ABHA offer?
The key benefit of ABHA is that individuals will be able to create and maintain their health records digitally, in a safe and secure manner. ABDM platform will provide ready access to health data to your doctors and healthcare providers from anywhere in the country.
What does it mean at the ground level?
- Sharing of health data and tele-consultations will help people from rural areas consult and get treated remotely by doctors from urban/metropolitan areas, thus ensuring that no one is left without access to care when needed.
- Digital health records of hospital stays (from admission to discharge) can be accessed in a paperless manner, if an individual is admitted in a registered hospital. This enables the patient to access all the details of treatment (medical or surgical) provided to him/her.
- Nurses, midwives and doctors can consult a specialist/ super-specialist with ease and get expert opinions/insights for a critical case by sharing vital health data in real-time. Such interventions are known to be life-saving in several cases.
- Second opinions can be sought easily without having to think twice about the travel expenses and waiting time for in-person visits.
- An individual’s consent, which might be permanent, temporary, or time-bound, is mandatory for sharing of digital health records. Anonymous data can be used for research purposes and for epidemiological analysis.
- When enough people digitise their health records and agree to share it anonymously in national interest, data thus generated can serve as real-time feedback for various government healthcare schemes and interventions. In this way, the policy makers know in which direction to plan next.
These are just a few examples. Immense benefits can be harnessed using this digitally powered health ecosystem.
What is the Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR)?
The Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) is a comprehensive repository of healthcare professionals across India. It is an important and integral part of the ABDM ecosystem. All registered and verified healthcare practitioners, irrespective of whether they deliver modern or traditional healthcare services, can enroll themselves to this registry. The aim is to create a nation-wide network of healthcare professionals for the benefit of patients and doctors alike.
Who can enroll for HPR?
All healthcare professionals: doctors of all systems of medicine-modern and AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and homoeopathy), dentists, nurses, paramedics etc. can enroll for the HPR. Like ABHA is a unique number for the users, the HPR will provide a unique Healthcare Professional ID to those who enroll. This ID will be the means to connect with all stakeholders of healthcare ecosystem.
What are the benefits of enrolling in HPR for healthcare professionals?
Healthcare professionals who sign up for HPR are digitally connected to a host of services called “Unified Digital Services.” These services are intended to be interoperable and are digitally enabled. The aim is to facilitate healthcare activities and effective delivery of care.
It will provide healthcare professionals with an ‘online presence.’ There will be ease of discovering verified healthcare professionals and better access to quality healthcare for the patients across the country.
Under “Unified Digital Services” associated with enrolling are license renewal, obtaining no-objection certificate, digital signature, and access to clinical decision support systems to name a few.
The vision of HPR is to evolve into a citizen-centric and practitioner-centric platform, which matches and is in compliance with global healthcare standards.
What should I do?
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- For citizens, the first step to avail of the benefits of the entire digital health ecosystem is to create an ABHA for you and for your family members. To create ABHA in an easy and secure manner click here – https://bit.ly/3IY3psW
- If you have already created your ABHA, start putting it to good use! Avail tele-consultations, digital health records and e-pharmacies. Create, store, access and share (with consent) your personal health records. Longitudinal data will give a better insight into progression of conditions and outcomes of treatment to patients and doctors.
- If you are a Healthcare Professional, register here: https://hpr.abdm.gov.in/ and to know more about HPR: https://hpr.ndhm.gov.in/en/faq
Source:
Dr. Mamta Lele- Pawara
(MD Ayurveda-Internal Medicine, CRAV-Kayachikitsa, MA Sanskrit)