Digital Health Ecosystem in India for Better Healthcare Service: Nadda

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare J.P. Nadda said India is committed to reforms in health services delivery using Information and Communication Technology.

Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has great potential to improve delivery of healthcare services and "India will take advantage of it under the Digital India programme", said Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare J.P. Nadda. //

Adoption of digital technology for improvement of governance had always been central to the Indian government, he noted.

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‘Building digital health ecosystem partnerships with private healthcare providers can help reach out healthcare facilities to the public.’

According to him, the four major areas where India has implemented digital technology in healthcare are health services delivery, compliance of people towards health and care, engagement of citizens in partnering with the government for planning and management of health services delivery and improving governance.

Nadda stressed the importance of building digital health ecosystem partnerships with private healthcare providers, academia, health IT practitioners, industry, patient groups and regulatory bodies.

Nadda said IT systems in India were also rolled out for integrated health surveillance programmes, public health management, hospital information system, supply chain management, online services, telemedicine, programme monitoring.

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"Such initiatives include systems for obtaining reliable information and near real-time data for policy making, ensuring efficient programmes and service delivery," he said.

The National Health Portal of India was providing authentic information related to healthcare to citizens in different Indian languages, he said. "Content of the portal is currently available in six Indian languages and it is planned to add six more languages."

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The Online Registration System (ORS) was being used for scheduling online appointments in public sector tertiary care hospitals, he said, adding that around 139 hospitals were currently using the ORS application.

The Minister said India was planning to create an integrated digital health platform and enable the creation of electronic health records for the 1.3 billion people of India.

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"We wish to enable hospitals and health service providers to do so by giving them free software systems and data storage facilities. In addition, we wish to use big data analytics to prioritize our interventions and become proactive in solving healthcare challenges," he added.

Source-IANS