Niti Aayog in July 2019 has finally released the digital health blueprint policy for India. The focus of the digital health blueprint is in line 2017 National health policy which focuses on long with a strong emphasis on the care continuum. National health policy also plays a lot of emphasis on the Triple Aims that include
1)Accessibility
2) Affordability
3) Quality of care
National Digital Health blueprint truly recognises that there is no one entity or organisation that can solve the Healthcare problems of India it calls the blueprint for the entire Healthcare system this is a strong departure from the traditional ideology that the government is the sole provider of healthcare for all citizens.
National health blueprint focuses on three major components
- Digital health infrastructure number
- Digital data
- Standards and regulations
Meeting key healthcare objectives
The key objectives of the national digital health blueprint include establishing the core data model for storing and using healthcare data that would be generated from this ecosystem. Standards for the infrastructure required for its seamless integration using standards for all the components of the ecosystem.
The other interesting aspect is creating a system of Personal Health Records, based on international standards, and easily accessible to the citizens and to the service providers, based on citizen-consent.
There is also a provision for declassifying data for usage for analytics and doing population health management. In addition to these, there is guidance on governance, leveraging information systems already in place.
Finally, the 4 building blocks of the policy are
- Identification- Identifying the citizen and ensuring that his corresponding health data is mapped to his id. This is possible through Personal health identifier and through the health registries
- Citizen in the center- All access and control of the data lie with the citizen. This is enforced through consent manager, Anonymizer and Privacy Operations Center.
- Interoperability- Data should be available through health information exchange and National Health Informatics Standards.
- Access – Governed by Mobile First and a Digital Web portal strategy
I would encourage you to download the blue print report and study the implications of the report for your self. Looking forward to your comments.
