India has rolled out a mammoth program to provide digital health identity to its 1.3 billion people to inject efficiency into its public services. The step also promises to cut medical bills and allow citizens to access their records online.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the project dubbed Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and said it aims to extend universal healthcare through 14-digit unique identification numbers.
PM Narendra Modi to announce nationwide rollout of Pradhan Mantri Digital Health Mission on September 27. Under this, a unique digital health ID will be provided to the people, which will contain all the health records of the person: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya pic.twitter.com/gyKI7FI8JU
— ANI (@ANI) September 23, 2021
The mission “will connect digital health solutions of hospitals across the country with each other (and) countrymen will now get a digital health identity,” Modi said at the launch ceremony earlier in the week.
“With effective and reliable data, medical treatment will be better, and cost will be reduced,” he said and added medical privacy will be guaranteed.
His health minister Mansukh Mandaviya promised the initiative, tested last year in six federally-governed territories, packed other benefits as well.
“Patients even if not physically present would be treated through digital consultation as doctors would be able to access medical records with the consent of their patients,” Mandaviya added.
Community doctors and hospitals will have to log in to provide glitch-free services.
Thousands of state-run clinics across India offer basic facilities and the new project to track the medical footprint of every citizen will bulk up services even for those who have misplaced all records of their ailments.
We’re working to strengthen India’s primary healthcare network with health & wellness centres across the country.
— BJP (@BJP4India) September 27, 2021
Over 80,000 such centres are already functional, providing routine check-ups, vaccination, and first prognosis of serious ailments.
- PM @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/tcWUqgrFDn
People often trek kilometers to access public healthcare in India where ambulance services are scarce and testing facilities are mostly clustered in towns and cities.
It "allows you to receive your digital lab reports, prescriptions and diagnosis seamlessly from verified healthcare professionals and health service providers," a government website added.
The latest project is seen as another milestone for India, which in 2018 launched the world’s largest state-funded health insurance scheme for 500 million dirt poor people.
Privacy matters
Technology security analysts praised the rollout but advised the government to first install a robust data protection law to prevent possible misuse.
“Going digital is imperative and its role in socio-economic good is only amplifying,” said Faisal Kawoosa, founder of India-based techARC consultancy.
“While there are ethical and best practices recommended and implemented by the digital ecosystem, it is now becoming extremely urgent to have privacy legislation in place to create that trust relationship through the value chain of the digital economy,” Kawoosa told RFI.
A parliamentary panel is currently scrutinizing a draft law on the subject amid worries over intrusive surveillance.
The National Digital Health Mission or MDHM, overseeing the government project, insisted it will not store individual medical records.
“Your health records are stored with healthcare information providers as per their retention policies and are shared the NDHM network with encryption mechanisms only after your express consent," the agency added.
“But that is not enough,” argued security analyst Prasanto K. Roy in comments published in Mint, a business daily.
Covid calamity
India felt the absence of technology-driven support during the peak of its coronavirus pandemic which has so far infected 33 million people and claimed 447,000 lives by the official count.
Experts say nearly half of the deaths occurred during a savage rebound of the virus this summer when hospitals ran out of beds or oxygen.
Centre for Global Development, a Washington-based think tank estimates a death toll of more than four million in India, where daily Covid-19 cases ebbed only by mid-August.
