Digital Health

Posted 14 Nov 2024

Updated 17 Nov 2024

4 min read

Why in the News?

Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), launched in 2021, marks three-year towards enabling Digital Health.

ABDM aims to connect the digital health solutions of hospitals across the country.
ABDM, as a ‘Digital Ecosystem’, will also enable a host of other facilities like digital consultation, consent of patients, etc.
Key Principles: Inclusivity; Free of Cost Registration; Opting out of the ABDM Ecosystem as per one’s will; single source of truth with no other parallel copies of one’s medical records; Federated structure to ensure privacy; Voluntary Participation.
Implementing agency: The National Health Authority, an attached office of Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
Components of ABDM Architecture
- Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID: A unique 14-digit number to store and manage health records.
- Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR): A unified repository of healthcare professionals across all medicine.
- Health Facility Registries (HFR): Repository of health facilities of the nation (both public and private).
- Health Information Exchange and Consent Manager (HIE-CM): To ensure that data exchange is driven by informed consent.
- Unified Health Interface (UHI): To Facilitate the discovery and delivery of health services.
- National Health Claims Exchange (HCX): To standardize the insurance payment ecosystem.

The WHO defines digital health as the “field of knowledge and practice associated with the development and use of digital technologies to improve health.” It includes:
- Digital health applications: Electronic Health Records; Telemedicine; Wearable Devices to monitors health aspects; and Health Information Systems for managing, storing, and exchanging health information.
Digital health technologies: AI and Big Data to quickly identify patterns in tremendous volumes of data; Internet of Medical Things (interconnected medical devices); Augmented Reality to make medical procedure more efficient; Digital Genomics, etc.

Seamless medical record sharing: Enables Indians to use IT-enabled tools to share prescriptions, blood test reports and X-ray diagnostics with doctors.
Unique personalised medical account: Creates a unique health ID for every citizen and digital registry to facilitate seamless interactions between healthcare experts.
Chronic disease management: Helps manage chronic diseases which have become a critical public health challenge in the past 15 years.
- Also, improve public health monitoring and advance evidence-based policymaking in the long run.
Enhanced treatment for critically ill patients: Data portability could expedite treatment of critically ill patients, especially those suffering from multiple ailments.
Comprehensive medical history repository: Creates repository alerting doctors to patient's medical history with one click, important for treating patients with comorbidities as highlighted during Covid-19.
- Also, gives patients options to choose which records they want to share with healthcare providers.
- This ecosystem will ensure old medical records are not lost as every record will be stored digitally.

Privacy and security issues: Unauthorized data access and breaches can compromise patient privacy and lead to identity theft.
- E.g., Personalized data collected can be exploited by insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms for targeted advertisement.
Algorithmic bias: Technologies such as AI can result in unfair or discriminatory treatment. E.g., might lead to racial & ethnic disparity in healthcare.
Equity and access issues: Unequal access to digital health technologies and digital literacy skills can exclude vulnerable populations.
- E.g., Poor internet connectivity in rural areas can make data entry and utilization of digital healthcare services a challenge.
Lack of trust in digital healthcare systems: E.g., The failure of the UK's National Health Service digital system highlights the importance of earning the trust of healthcare providers.
Lack of standardization in digital Cards: India struggles to standardize coverage and quality of existing digital cards (e.g., One Nation One Ration card, PM-JAY card, Aadhaar card, etc.), leading to data migration and transfer issues, as well as concerns over data security.
Communication challenges in diverse healthcare ecosystems: Due to its linguistic and cultural diversity in India.

Enhance universal reach: Ensure the Intelligent Health Solution is evaluated across a diverse user base, including displaced populations and diverse racial/cultural backgrounds, to improve quality of life and collaborative decision-making.
Strengthen technical proficiency: Improve digital skills among medical teachers and students to better leverage digital health tools.
Enhance targeted solutions: Create customized and individualized approaches to digital health tools, supported by empirical evidence.
Build ethical oversight: A formal governance body can be established to develop frameworks for data collection, sharing, and usage and draft a “code of ethics”.