The National Health Authority recently released a draft for Health Data Management Policy of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) in the public domain for feedback aiming to look at data safety measures as an attempt to digitise the healthcare ecosystem.
This ambitious mission is a move forward in strengthening the Indian health infrastructure lacking patient records and health data. However, it won’t be possible without addressing the concerns on data security and effective implementation.
Announced by Prime Minister Modi during the Independence Day speech, the mission aims to “voluntarily” give every Indian citizen a unique health ID under the National Digital Health Mission which will serve as a digital repository containing all their health data as well as provide a registry of doctors and health facilities.
Currently, the public and private hospitals function with varying technological capacities leading to fragmented and inadequate maintenance of health records.
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NDHM would consist of six areas, including health ID, DigiDoctor, health facility registry, personal health records, e-pharmacy, and telemedicine.
This transition from paper-based to electronic health records would reduce the challenges such as inconvenience caused by handling or loss of records, duplication of diagnostic and consultation services and delays in treatment leading to increased expenditure in healthcare.
Undoubtedly, the Covid-19 outbreak has been a major driving factor for the digital push in Indian healthcare, as happened in the legalisation of telemedicine which was long pending.
Reports suggest that adoption of electronic health records have shown significant benefits in healthcare delivery, preventive care and decreasing treatment costs. However, since health records are sensitive personal data, the lack of a legal framework for data protection is a major roadblock to overcome.
According to Max Healthcare CIO Prashant Singh, there are various security controls which all other stakeholders in the healthcare delivery like health information provider, health information users and others have to consider while connecting their ecosystem with the centralized channel.
Source: Economic Times