Welcome Move on Digitising Healthcare

Context: Healthcare digitisation must be supplemented by the cyber defence systems and a data protection law.

Significance of National Digital Health Mission:

• Evolution: The National Health Policy-2017 underlined the need for a repository of medical information of the country’s citizens.

• • • Niti Aayog proposed the creation of a National Health ID.
• Key features: personal health records, Digi Doctor, health facility registry and Health ID. Health ID will-

• • • Contain details of every disease, doctors visited, medicines taken and the diagnosis.
    • Allow patients to virtually share files between hospitals and doctors.
• Create efficiencies and help leverage investments : for greater coverage and impact due to its portability.

• • • Public-private linkage in digital healthcare could enhance medical efficiency and improve the patient’s experience.
    • It will open up opportunities for a host of healthcare start-ups.
    • Health repository can alert the physician to a patient’s medical history just at the click of a computer key.

• Improve quality healthcare access : particularly for migrant populations by reducing the risk of preventable medical errors

• It will augment the technology-enabled healthcare service delivery system like Telemedicine.

• It will help in designing region and demography based health policy interventions.
• Anonymised health data can be critical for healthcare-related research. 

Remaining Challenges

• Technology cannot be a substitute for structural issues: but to augment their efficiency. For E.g. Telemedicine.

• Shortage of medical personnel: India’s doctor-population ratio (1:1,450) does not meet the WHO’s norm of one doctor for 1,000 people. 

• High out-of-pocket medical expense without any guarantee of quality. 

• May Burden the Healthcare system: Tasking the already strained medical system with digital documentation would affect the success of the health ID scheme.

•  For E.g. Physician burnout has restricted the implementation of digital health regime in the US.

• Asymmetrical relations between health service providers and medical care seekers: might lead to privacy breaches.

Way Forward

• India’s data protection law will have to factor in concerns related to the privacy of individual health data.
• It must protect health/personal data and prevent arbitrary State intrusion into citizen data.
•  India’s legal, IT and medical systems will have to come together to translate the National Digital Health Mission’s patient-centric vision into reality.