Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Shri J P Nadda on 19 February 2018, addressed the Global Digital Health Partnership Summit, at Canberra, Australia. The Union Health Minister spoke on the topic: Making Digital Health Services a Priority in Healthcare Reform. During his address he highlighted the government of India’s initiatives in the field of digitization of health services in India.
Digital Health Care System in India
Four major areas: Mr. Nadda informed that there are four major areas where India has implemented Digital Technology in healthcare. These are; towards improving health service delivery, towards improving compliance of people towards health & care, engaging citizens in partnering with government for planning and management of health services delivery and Improving governance.
Healthcare ecosystem: The Health Ministry has rolled out large scale IT systems in different areas of healthcare ecosystem such asintegrated health surveillance program, public health management, hospital information system, supply chain management, online services, tele-medicine, programme monitoring and mHealth.
National Health Portal: India’s National Health Portal provides authentic information related to healthcare to citizens. NHP is functioning as Citizen Portal for Healthcare, providing health-related information to citizens and stakeholders in different Indian languages. Total web users for national health portal 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.
Hospital Information System: Hospital Information System is being implemented in hospitals for automation of hospital processes to achieve better efficiency and service delivery in public health facilities up to Community Health Centre level.
e-Hospital: e-Hospital- developed by National Informatics Centre which is implemented in more than 173 Hospitals and e-Sushrut– developed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Noida which is implemented in more than 80 hospitals.
Online Registration System (ORS): Online Registration System (ORS) is used for scheduling online appointments in public sector tertiary care hospitals. Around 139 hospitals are currently using ORS application.
My Hospital: Patient engagement in improving service delivery through My Hospital system 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.
