PM launches Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission
27 Sep 2021
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Prime minister Narendra Modi today launched Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which will create a seamless online platform and enable interoperability within the digital health ecosystem.
The campaign of strengthening health facilities that have been going on for the last seven years is entering a new phase today. “Today we are launching a mission that has the potential of bringing a revolutionary change in India’s health facilities,” said the prime minister while speaking on the occasion. Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which is a follow-up of Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY scheme, will lead to the creation of the world’s largest connected infrastructure for healthcare, the prime minister said while launching the mission.
The prime minister underlined the fact that with 1.3 billion Aadhaar numbers, 1.18 billion mobile subscribers, about 800 million internet users and about 430 million Jan Dhan bank accounts, there is no such big connected infrastructure anywhere in the world.
“The way technology is being deployed in governance reforms today is unprecedented”, said the prime minister. “Digital infrastructure is taking everything from ‘Ration to Prashasan’ to the common Indian in a fast and transparent manner,” he added.
“Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY has addressed a key headache in the lives of the poor. So far more than 2 crore countrymen have availed the facility of free treatment under this scheme, half of which are women.”
“Ayushman Bharat – Digital Mission, will now connect the digital health solutions of hospitals across the country with each other.”
“Healthcare solutions brought by the government are a big investment in the present and future of the country,” the prime minister stated.
The Arogya Setu app helped a lot in preventing the spread of corona infection, the prime minister saidm even as he lauded Co-WIN for its role in making India achieve a record administration of about 900 million vaccine doses, under the free vaccine campaign.
Continuing with the theme of the use of technology in health, the Prime Minister said that there has also been an unprecedented expansion of telemedicine during the Corona period, so far about 1,25 billion remote consultations have been completed through e-Sanjeevani. This facility is connecting thousands of countrymen living in far-flung parts of the country every day with doctors of big hospitals of cities while sitting at home, said the prime minister.
Diseases are one of the key reasons that push families into the vicious cycle of poverty and women of the families are the worst sufferers as they always relegate their health issues to the background, Modi said, adding that he has made it a point to personally meet some beneficiaries of Ayushman and experienced the benefits of the scheme during the interactions. “These healthcare solutions are a big investment in the present and future of the country,” he emarked.
Modi said India is working on a health model that is holistic and inclusive, a model which stresses preventive healthcare and, in case of disease, easy, affordable and accessible treatment. He also discussed unprecedented reforms in health education and said a much larger number of doctors and paramedical manpower is being created in India now as compared to 7-8 years ago.
A comprehensive network of AIIMS and other modern health institutions is being established in the country and work on establishing one medical college in every three Lok Sabha constituencies is going on. He also talked about strengthening health facilities in villages and informed that in the villages, primary health centre networks and wellness centres are being strengthened. More than 80,000 such centres have already been operationalised, said the prime minister.
Noting that the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is being launched on World Tourism Day, the prime minister said health has a very strong relationship with tourism. Because when our health infrastructure is integrated, strengthened, it also improves the tourism sector.
Key highlights of PM-DHM include:
- A health ID for every citizen that will also work as their health account, to which personal health records can be linked and viewed with the help of a mobile application;
- A Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) and Healthcare Facilities Registries (HFR) that will act as a repository of all healthcare providers across both modern and traditional systems of medicine. This will ensure ease of doing business for doctors/hospitals and healthcare service providers.
- PM-DHM Sandbox, created as a part of the Mission, will act as a framework for technology and product testing that will help organisations, including private players, intending to be a part of the National Digital Health Ecosystem become a Health Information Provider or Health Information User or efficiently link with building blocks of PM-DHM.
PM-DHM pilot project is already functional in 6 union territories - Andaman & Nicobar, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. PM-DHM mission aims to create interoperability within the digital health ecosystem similar to the role played by the Unified Payments Interface in revolutionizing payments.
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