06/11/2019 - Health

KEY POINTS

National Health Stack is digital infrastructure built with the aim of making the health insurance system more transparent and robust, while factoring in the uniqueness of India’s health sector, and the political realities of federalism.

Foundational components of NHS

·       An electronic national health registry that would serve as a single source of health data for the nation;

·       A coverage and claims platform that would serve as the building blocks for large health protection schemes, allow for the horizontal and vertical expansion of schemes like Ayushman Bharat by states, and enable a robust system of fraud detection;

·       Federated personal health records (PHR) framework that would serve the twin purposes of access to their own health data by patients, and the availability of health data for medical research, which is critical for advancing the understanding of human health;

·       National health analytics platform that would provide a holistic view combining information on multiple health initiatives, and feed into smart policymaking, for instance, through improved predictive analytics; and

·       Horizontal components including a unique digital health ID, health data dictionaries and supply chain management for drugs, payment gateways, etc., shared across all health programmes.

But why is the NHS necessary?

·       There is an urgent need for integration of the two arms of Ayushman Bharat health and wellness centres which constitute the primary care arm, and PMJAY, which is the secondary and tertiary care arm under which the target is to provide 10.74 crore families with an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh each.

·       Without integration, the goal of continuum of care cannot be met and that would mean PMJAY might end up becoming a perpetual drain on resources.

·       Hence, the need for a common digital language for the operationalisation and inter-operability of various health schemes, which the NHS seeks to provide.

Is all the data going to be safe/secure?

·       One of the biggest concerns following the high-profile rollout of Ayushman Bharat has been regarding data security and privacy of patients.

·       More than a year after the Justice Srikrishna Committee prepared a draft data privacy law, there has been little meaningful movement on it.

·       In the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s privacy judgment, the data privacy law should ideally have preceded the implementation of Ayushman Bharat.

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