India to create digital health platform for better service delivery: Nadda
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, FEB 19, 2018: FOCUSING on the importance of digital technology for better governance, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Mr J P Nadda, stated that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has great potential towards improvement of delivery of healthcare services and India is committed to reforms in health service delivery using ICT under 'Digital India Program' of Government of India (GoI). Mr. Nadda spoke on the topic - "Making Digital Health Services a Priority in Healthcare Reform" at Global Digital Health Partnership Summit, at Australia on February 19, 2018.
The Union Health Minster stressed on the importance for building digital health ecosystem partnerships with private healthcare providers, academia, health IT practitioners, industry, patient groups and regulatory bodies. Adoption of Digital Technology for improvement of governance has always been central to polity of the Indian government, he added. Reiterating the commitment of the government, the Health Minister said that our vision is to create integrated digital health platform and enable creation of electronic health record for 1.3 billion people of India.
Mr. Nadda further informed that there are four major areas where India has implemented Digital Technology in healthcare anmely, improving health service delivery, improving compliance of people towards health & care, engaging citizens in partnering with government for planning and management of health services delivery and improving governance.
Mr Nadda also informed the participations that the Health Ministry has rolled out large scale IT systems in different areas of healthcare ecosystem including systems for obtaining reliable information and near real-time data for policymaking, ensuring efficient program and service delivery. Speaking about some of the initiatives of the Health Ministry, Mr Nadda said that India's National Health Portal(NHP) provides authentic information related to healthcare to citizens. He further said that NHP is functioning as Citizen Portal for Healthcare, providing health-related information to citizens and stakeholders in different Indian languages. Total web users for NHP till date are over 2.6 Million and over 2.2 Million calls were made by citizens till date. Content of the portal is currently available in 6 Indian languages-and it is planned to add 6 more languages, he elaborated.
The Union Health Minister further said that Hospital Information Systemis being implemented in hospitals for automation of hospital processes to achieve better efficiency and service delivery in public health facilities up toCommunity Health Centre level. The Online Registration System (ORS) is used for scheduling online appointments in public sector tertiary care hospitals. Around 139 hospitals are currently using ORS application. Patient engagement in improving service delivery through MyHospitalsystem which is used for collection of patient feedback on health services being rendered by public hospitals. The application is available in seven different languages and currently, more than 1067 hospitals, are covered in 23 States/UTs. So far more than 1.3 Million feedback have been received out of which 76% satisfied with the service, Mr Nadda said. He also informed the participants about the various mobile apps being used by the Health Ministry.
The Minister of Health, Australia, Mr Greg Hunt, the Chief Executive Officer, Australian Digital Health Agency, Mr Tim Kelsey, the Secretary, Department of Health, Australia, Ms Glenys Beauchamp along with delegates from Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America and WHO were also present at the summit.
