States told to link patient records to Ayushman Bharat health accounts
The central government has directed all state administrations to link the health records of beneficiaries enrolled under different health schemes with the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID in a bid to maximize health insurance benefits provided to people.
The lack of integration of health records with the Ayushman Bharat ID means that patients and doctors are unable to get all the benefits of the digital health mission.
Union health secretary Apurva Chandra has taken this up with the states. The unique digital health ID—ABHA—is part of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), which aims to create a digital health ecosystem in the country.
The ABHA ID enables citizens to authenticate, access and manage their health records digitally, and facilitates hospital and doctors’ appointments, helping patients avoid queues for registration at healthcare facilities.
As of 20 May, over 618 million ABHA IDs had been created. However, states are unable to meet 100% compliance for ABHA seeding on different health portals of the government. For instance, the National Communicable Disease
(NCD) portal has about 534 million beneficiaries but only 84 million of those beneficiaries are linked to the Ayushman Bharat ID. Similarly, the sickle cell programme portal has 29 million beneficiaries, but only 89,000 beneficiaries are integrated with ABHA ID.
The reproductive and child health (RCH) programme has about 542 million beneficiaries but only about 1.5 million of those enrolled under the programme are linked with the digital health IDs.
Additionally, the National Viral Hepatitis Control Program (NVHCP) and Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme (PMNDP) have linked 5,600 and 17,000 beneficiaries with digital health accounts respectively.
“The value proposition of ABDM is huge, as citizens will be able to view and share all their health records. In order to facilitate this, it is vital that all programmes successfully complete the development of milestone 1, milestone 2 and milestone 3,” said Chandra in a letter to the states/UT seen by Mint. The milestones Chandara has referred to are: Creating ABHA ID for beneficiaries; linking their digital health records with ABHA; and sharing of digital health records.
“Though states have taken huge interest in creation of the IDs, the non-linking of health records with these IDs, is not allowing the stakeholders, including the patients, from reaping [benefits] of the digital health records,” said Chandra.
These milestones include creating ABHA ID for their beneficiaries, linking their digital health records with ABHA and sharing of digital health records.
The mission is being implemented by the National Health Authority (NHA) ensuring data privacy and safety. Medical records are made available to anyone only with the consent of the patient.
Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered.