PM modi launches national health ID. How it will improve Indian health sector.

 On 15th August,2020 our honourable prime minister, Sri Narendra Modi has announced on Saturday about the launch of NDHM  during the Independence Day speech. 

Under the mission, every Indian will get a new Aadhar-like health ID that will store the individual's medical records, including doctor visits, diseases, the line of treatment and drugs taken. The scheme will map every citizen's health with a unique ID.

While delivering the Independence Day Speech from the Red Fort, prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday has launched  National Digital Health Mission. And this new scheme will be coming under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.

He delivered on his speech," from today, a big campaign is being launched in which technology will play a big role. The National Digital Health Mission is being launched today. This will bring a revolution in India's health sector and it will help to reduce problems in getting treatment with the help of technology." He also added," every Indian will be given a health ID. This health ID will work as each Indian's health account".

So, now what is this new digital health mission? 

As mentioned above, under this mission, every Indian will get a new Aadhar-like health ID that will store the individual's medical records, including doctor visits, diseases, the line of treatment and drugs taken. This all will come under e- pharmacy, telemedicine, creating a new national health registry.

This ID will become essential from a doctor's appointment to hospitalisation for any treatment. The key feature here is the part of technology- it will leverage open digital systems to provide high quality health care for all.

The health ID will be in the form of mobile application. Here, patients can create their ID and will be allowed to share their data's between hospital's and doctor digitally. Here, they can choose for how long and what specific documents they would like to share and with whom. If an individual wants to benefit themselves with government schemes, then they will have to link their ID with their Aadhar.

While for now, the full details of the mission are being awaited, the easiest analogy that can be drawn for now is regarding the functioning of the health ID is with the Unified Payments Interface(UPI). 

The origin of National Digital Health Mission  goes back to the National Health policy of 2017, in which it was proposed a new National Digital Health Authority. In July, 2019 the National Digital Health blueprint was released by a committee headed by former UIDAI chairman Satyanarayana. According to this blueprint, the objective of the digital mission is to achieve a citizen centric, universal health coverage, that provides quality healthcare, with better accessibility.

However, with India we are still lacking a law on data protection, digital health mission and the semblance of the Aadhar policy is expected to trigger  privacy concerns in the days to come.

But we should support this new scheme, as this is a new thing which will be beneficial for everyone in India.