(1/n) Thread on why launch of NDHM is a huge inflection point for the healthcare sector in India.

Just like email disrupted information exchange among peers. UPI disrupted the money exchange experience. Similarly the Health ID initiative will disrupt healthtech in India.

Currently, are 4 major initiatives to be taken under the NDHM.

-> health ID
-> PHR records
-> digidoctor registry
-> health facilities registry

What is Health ID?

Like your own UPI address, one will have your own health ID. All your personal medical data will be linked to this health ID. So what is the benefit of interlinking data to a single address?

Portability = Data among multiple healthcare providers can be exchanged among themselves (pre-requisite to the consent authorised by the person).

This initiative will give a push to a paperless healthcare, but also taking the friction of safekeeping of health documents.

Agency to the user = Earlier the user had no say in sharing of their health data. But with the health ID consent artefact one will be able control to whom they share their data and for how long.

This will empower the user to share data only when it is required, tackling misuse.

What is PHR?

PHR aka personal health records are information chunks ranging from prescriptions, labs test results, pharmacy bills. At the moment, most of the PHR are either non-digital or non-standardised.

With the adoption of NDHM, the push towards standardisation of health data in a digital format will get a big boost. All such PHR will be linked to the health ID of the given person.

A federated architecture is planned to be implemented where the fears of increased vulnerability due to interlinking of data is mitigated.

The data will remain with different health information provider, interlinked by the NDHM/healthstack protocols.

What is digidoctor and health facility registry?

It is an effort by the government to ensure that only authorised healthcare professionals and providers participate in the initiative.

Appropriate protocols will be implemented to cross verify the information provided by the doctors as well as health facilities. This step ensures all the quacks who operate will be nipped from the system.

So imagine a future where the patient visits the doctor registry / health facility registry and decides to visit a verified place for their treatment.

They bring their health ID. The nurse in the hospital scans the QR code on the health ID.

The hospital requests consent from the patient through to share their health information. Once the patient selects all those information that they think fit to shared. The doctor gets to access the PHR of the patient.

Doctor upon diagnosis creates a new PHR for the patient. This info also gets connected to the health ID for future use.

This whole journey will remain the same irrespective of different healthcare providers. The experience of patient will 10x post the implementation of NDHM.

This interlinking initiative by the government will ensure standardisation of healthcare occurs.

Fraud among different providers can be nipped. The public trust in healthcare sector will get a big boost.

The digitisation of data will leapfrog Indian healthcare sector with emergence of new companies in pharma, insurances, telemedicine, data analytics.

The second order effects of such a massive push has hardly been covered in this thread.

This whole initiative has been spear headed by public private partnerships and voluntary organisations. The revolution in healthcare has begun.

UPI lead to the stronger emergence of fintech in India. NDHM will play the same role in case of healthtech in India.

(n/n) For further reading and participation
- do follow the @Product_Nation seminars on healthstack
- @AyushmanNHA documents on the strategy overview of NDHM https://nha.gov.in/assets/uploads/NDHM_Strategy_Overview.pdf
- DM me for a quick chat / brainstorming over the same :-)