Whether it’s AIDS, malaria or now, COVID-19, Infectious epidemics follow a terrible pattern. Diseases hurt some sections of the community more than others. Health care India has always been the story of two cities and in rural and semi-urban areas of the country the average barely represents the realities of the land. This asymmetry exists throughout the patient’s journey, lack of awareness about preventive care, difficulty finding the right care provider, delayed diagnosis of medical conditions, even long journeys for basic doctor consultation for repeated diagnostic tests. And inadequate follow-up care – all these problems are more acute in Tier II and III India.
Since the onset of the Covid-19 epidemic, India has accelerated the use of technology to improve people’s lives. While digitization has had a major impact on sectors such as finance, education and commerce, new possibilities for opening up how healthcare is delivered in India have now opened up and provided hope for a healthier, brighter future. India is at the forefront of breaking down barriers in the current healthcare ecosystem by using technology as a healthcare competent.
In August 2020, the Hon’ble Prime Minister announced the launch of the National Digital Health Mission (or NDHM), now known as the Living India Digital Mission (or ABDM). It aims to create an integrated health system that empowers the patient and provides access to good quality and affordable care. This National Health Authority The NHA has already made significant progress on this journey. ABDM will be proud of a federated architecture that can be used by both the public and private sectors to create and deliver new, innovative, healthcare solutions. Its main building blocks include a unique health account identifier for individuals to get started with Ayushman Bharat Health Department (Or ABHA), a certified registry of healthcare professionals and health facilities, federated health records. Next, we will look at Interoperability and the Unified Claim Settlement Engine.
The basic principle of ABDM is to facilitate safe and secure movement of health information such as prescription and discharge summaries between doctors, patients and other stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem with the consent of the owner of the health information i.e. the patient. To allow the flow of digital health records, ABDM has a unique health account number provision, known as the Ayushman Bharat Health Account Number (or ABHA Number), which every citizen wants to choose to make sure there are medical records created. Health information issued or consented to the right person to do so accessed by the user.
Today, UPI is the most sophisticated and most importantly, financially-inclusive payment platform in the world. The way healthcare is delivered in India, especially for rural and semi-urban areas of India, ABDM has such potential.
The Indian health system, especially in rural areas, focuses primarily on secondary and tertiary care. As a result, care is delayed due to poor access and affordability. This can lead to poor health outcomes. The problem is more acute with the spread of lifestyle diseases where early identification plays a major role in the end result. Increasing access due to adoption of technology in various aspects of care such as e-consultation, e-pharmacy, e-diagnostics and e-ICU will especially increase the demand for care.
The government is already working on developing an integrated e-claims platform for speedy and standardized processing of cashless insurance and PMJAY claims. The adoption of insurance and PMJAY will lead to a stronger transformation, thus providing a solution for the affordability of care for large sections of society. Again, this will significantly increase the demand for quality healthcare in Tier II and III areas of the country.
Digital “ways of working” will reduce employee costs and increase productivity. This is significant in India where the doctor-to-population ratio in India is 1: 1,511 against the WHO standard of 1: 1,000. Assistance through remote monitoring and e-consultation will help alleviate the problem of severe shortage of medical personnel in rural areas.
For the past decade, the world has been looking to India to distribute its demographic dividend to global power consumption. ABDM will provide solutions for both access and affordability, thus bringing good quality healthcare – products and services – to millions of Indians.
Harsh Parikh, Founder & Director, Drifcase
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