New Delhi (The Hawk): The National Health Authority (NHA) organised a workshop in Bengaluru on 28th October 2022 with stakeholders such as State Mission Directors, IRDAI, WHO, health industry leaders, health-tech companies, development organizations, partner NGOs etc. to brainstorm on the steps required to enable rapid adoption of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) across the country. The event started with a brief context setting by Dr. R. S. Sharma, CEO NHA in presence of Shri Nandan Nilekani, Infosys Co-founder and ex-Chairman UIDAI.
As part of the event, the team visited C V Raman General Hospital in Bengaluru for a walk-through of ABDM enabled processes adopted by the hospital and their on-ground impact. The hospital had recently implemented QR Code based OPD registration service which has helped them reduce the waiting time in the OPD block considerably. During the workshop participants discussed the latest developments under ABDM that shall enable true interoperability in the health sector and how effective adoption of ABDM can pave the way towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The State Mission Directors from states of Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh which are among the early adopters of ABDM shared their experiences and learnings from ABHA creation & linking of health records at public hospitals and as part of state health programs.
Talking further about the efforts from the government side, Shri Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman of Capacity Building Commission & Quality Council of India, spoke about working on strengthening the digital health ecosystem by developing more use cases like the QR Code based OPD registrations and working on policy frameworks which shall drive a pull-factor for adoption of ABDM. Elaborating on the critical role ABDM’s HCX can play, Ms.Yegnapriya Bharath, Chief General Manager, IRDAI spoke about how faster processing of health insurance claims as a benefit can help attract the insurance sector players to adopt the scheme.
From the private sector, representatives of ABDM enabled facilities such as SRL Labs, Apollo Hospitals and Narayana Hrudayalaya shared their perspective and the challenges they are facing in active adoption of the scheme along with steps required to address them. Representing the technology provider side were CrelioHealth, Plus91 and Practo with their views on how ABDM enabled HMIS, LIMS, teleconsultation and other digital health solutions can help onboard more healthcare providers and contribute to digitization of health records for individuals. Dr. Basant Garg, Additional CEO, NHA moderated a dedicated session with doctors who are a key stakeholder segment of the scheme. Representatives from private integrators such as Sahamati, Driefcase, IHX, Ekacare, Paytm and Sattva also shared their views and innovative ideas on increasing the adoption of ABDM.
Concluding the workshop, Dr. R. S. Sharma, CEO, NHA said - “ABDM is a complex scheme with many layers of technical capabilities and a vast set of stakeholders. Bringing them all together and creating a platform for collaboration is the main challenge. However, reciprocity among stakeholders is quite important to ensure the scheme’s adoption. This workshop helped us gather the stakeholders’ perspectives and we intend to hold some more collective brainstorming sessions in future. It has been a great learning experience as we look forward to mission mode implementation of ABDM.”