Adoption of digital technology to improve the governance had always been central to the Indian government, said Jagat Prakash Nadda in a speech delivered on February 19, 2018 to delegates from around a dozen countries at the Global Digital Health Partnership Summit, held in Canberra, Australia.
Indian Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare said India is committed to reforming the delivery of health services using information and communication technologies (ICT). He said the ICT had great potential to improve the delivery of healthcare services and that « India will take advantage of it under the Digital India program ».
India seeks to improve patient engagement
Australian Minister of Health Greg Hunt, Australian Digital Health Agency CEO Tim Kelsey and delegates and from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, the United States of America and the World Health Organization were also present at the summit.
The Indian Minister said that the four main areas in which India has implemented digital technology in healthcare are health services delivery, compliance of people towards health and care, engagement of citizens in partnering with the government for planning and management of health services delivery and improving governance (source: Thehealthsite.com).
Towards partnerships with industry, patient groups and academics
He also emphasized the importance of building digital health ecosystem partnerships with private health care providers, health IT practitioners, patient groups, industry, academics and regulatory bodies.
India is developing IT systems for integrated health surveillance programs
Mr Nadda said IT systems have also been deployed in India for integrated health surveillance programs, public health management as well as hospital information system, supply chain management, online services, tele-medicine and program monitoring.
« Such initiatives include systems for obtaining reliable information and near real-time data for policy making, ensuring efficient programs and service delivery, » he said.
A portal available in various Indian dialects
The National Health Portal of India is currently providing authentic information related to healthcare to citizens in different Indian languages, he added. « Content of the portal is currently available in six Indian languages and it is planned to add six more languages. »
The Online Registration System (ORS) has been used to schedule online appointments in-public sector tertiary care hospitals, he explained, adding that about 139 hospitals were currently using the ORS application.
Digital health records for all Indians
The minister said the country is planning to create an integrated digital health platform and enable the creation of electronic health records for the 1.3 billion people of India.
« We wish to enable hospitals and health service providers to do so by giving them free software systems and data storage facilities. In addition, we wish to use big data analytics to prioritize our interventions and become proactive in solving healthcare challenges. »