National Digital Health Mission

On August 15, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the National Digital Health Mission. The purpose is to establish an integrated healthcare system that digitally connects practitioners and patients by providing them with real-time health information. This would encourage the delivery of timely and well-structured healthcare across the country.

How will it be helpful from the UPSC Exam perspective?

1. Questions that can be asked in Prelims
   • National Digital Health Mission launched under which ministry?
   • Year of launch
   • Components of National Digital Health Mission
   • Aims of the mission
2. Questions that can be asked in Mains
   • Government initiatives towards improving the country’s healthcare infrastructure.
   • Critical analysis of the National Digital Health Mission
   • Essay on digitalizing healthcare

Important Facts about the National Digital Health Mission
Launch Date	15th August 2020 – 74th Independence Day
Comes under which Ministry	It is implemented by the National Health Authority (NHA) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
Objective	To create a national digital health ecosystem that supports universal health coverage
Official Website	https://ndhm.gov.in/

Learn about all important government schemes that are important for most of the competitive examinations including the IAS Exam.

Background of National Digital Health Mission

1. National Health Policy 2017 envisions:
   • Highest level of health and wellbeing for all at all ages
   • Preventive and promotive health care orientation in all development policies
   • Universal healthcare access

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare established a team led by J. Satyanarayana to draught an implementation framework for the National Health Stack.
• The Satyanarayana committee suggested that a National Digital Health Blueprint be created to lay out the foundations and action plan for a digital health mission.
• The National Digital Mission Blueprint suggested creating a National Digital Health Mission to create a digital healthcare ecosystem for healthcare services across the country.

What are the expected outcomes of NDHM?

As per the MoH&FW; the effective and efficient implementation of the mission can bring the following outcomes:

1. Citizens can access their health records within 5 clicks.
2. Unlike going for diagnostic tests multiple times with each visit to doctors, through this mission a citizen will have to undergo a diagnostic test only once and can follow up treatments from different healthcare providers.
3. All healthcare services are provided at a single point.
4. Continuum of care is assured at primary, secondary, and tertiary care.

Challenges to the National Digital Health Mission

1. Data misuse – It is a challenge to secure the health data of the citizens along with other personal information to avoid a breach of the right to privacy.
2. Leakages from health repositories – Technological advancement and high security to avoid any leakage of the data.
3. Profiteering
4. Foreign surveillance

Conclusion

The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) encompasses:

• Health and Well-being for all
• Health and Well-being at all ages
• Universal Health Coverage
• Citizen-centric Services
• Quality of Care
• Accountability for Performance
• Efficiency and Effectiveness in the delivery of services
• Creation of a holistic and comprehensive health eco-system

Way Forward with National Digital Health Mission

• The NDHM still does not recognize ‘Health’ as a justiciable right. There should be a push draft at making health a right, as prescribed in the draft National Health Policy, 2015.
• One of the biggest concerns is regarding data security and privacy of patients. It must be ensured that the health records of the patients remain entirely confidential and secure.
• In addition, the failure of a similar National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom must be learnt lessons from and the technical and implementation-related deficiencies must be proactively addressed prior to launching the mission on a pan India scale.
• The standardisation of NDHM architecture across the country will need to find ways to accommodate state-specific rules. It also needs to be in sync with government schemes like Ayushman Bharat Yojana and other IT-enabled schemes like Reproductive Child Health Care and NIKSHAY etc.

National Digital Health Mission – UPSC Notes:-Download PDF Here

Objectives of National Digital Health Mission

• Implementation of Digital Health Systems
• These systems manage critical digital health data.
• To handle the infrastructure needs for a smooth service exchange.
• Registries are created.
• It will contain all reliable information on clinical settings, healthcare experts, health workers, medications, and pharmacies.
• All national digital health stakeholders are required to implement open standards.

• Personal health records should be standardised.
• It will be influenced by worldwide norms.
• The records may be easily shared between individuals, healthcare professionals, and service providers based on an individual's informed permission.
• Health-care application systems of the highest calibre
• The goal will be to meet the Sustainable Development Goals in the area of health (SDGs).
• Adoption of cooperative federalism in collaboration with states and territories.
• Promotion of private players' involvement in collaboration with public health authorities
• Making healthcare services available across the country.
• Healthcare practitioners should promote Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Systems.

• Digitally manage:
  • Identifying people, doctors, and health facilities,
  • Facilitating electronic signatures
  • Ensuring non-repudiable contracts
  • Making paperless payments
  • Securely storing digital records, and
  • Contacting people

Components of National Digital Health Mission

There are four components:

1. National Health Electronic Registries
2. A Federated Personal Health Records (PHR) Framework – It will fight twin challenges of:
   • Access to healthcare reports/data by the patients and the healthcare provider for treatment
   • Making the data available for medical research
3. A National Health Analytics Platform
4. Other Horizontal Components like:
   • Unique Digital Health ID,
   • Health Data Dictionaries
   • Supply Chain Management for Drugs,
   • Payment gateways

Salient Features of National Digital Health Mission

• The mission's institutional architecture is divided into many levels, beginning with the apex level and progressing via the board of directors, CEO, and operations.
• It's a healthcare infrastructure system with an IT component.

• Health ID — It will serve as a central store for all health-related data. Every stakeholder, including healthcare providers and Indian people, would be a willing participant in this health ID system. Every person who wants to take advantage of the mission's benefits will create a unique health ID.

• Patients' unique health IDs will be connected to health data consent managers, facilitating the smooth sharing of health records between patients and providers.
• A smartphone app or an official website will be used to deliver healthcare services.
• Digi Doctor - He or she will be in charge of providing healthcare services throughout the country. A healthcare provider who is interested in acting as a digital doctor can write prescriptions for patients who are in a different place. He or she will be given free digital signatures that may be used to write prescriptions.