Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission links 104 crore health records with 93 crore ABHA accounts

The healthcare initiative of the government, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), has built one of the world's largest digital health ecosystems, with more than 104 crore health records now linked to over 93 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) accounts, according to an official fact-sheet released on Monday.

The mission is helping create a citizen-centric digital healthcare ecosystem by enabling secure management of health records, reducing paperwork, cutting waiting times at hospitals and seamlessly connecting patients with hospitals, doctors and insurers on a unified digital network, it added.

Launched in September 2021, ABDM aims to build the digital backbone required to achieve universal health coverage by making healthcare services more accessible, efficient and interoperable across the country.

Moreover, ABHA serves as a unique digital health identifier that securely links individuals to their medical records across hospitals, laboratories, insurers and national health programmes with the patient's consent.

In addition, the government recently launched Aarogya Setu 2.0 as a citizen-facing digital health application under ABDM.

The revamped platform allows users to create ABHA accounts, manage digital health records, book teleconsultations and hospital appointments, access insurance information, locate nearby healthcare facilities and monitor personal health using wearable device integration, according to the fact-sheet.

The document further highlighted that the National Health Authority's 'Scan and Share' service has significantly reduced outpatient registration time at hospitals.

More than 23.21 crore ABHA-linked digital tokens had been generated at healthcare facilities as of June 18.

As of the date, incentives exceeding Rs 107 crore have been disbursed to hospitals, over Rs 2.95 crore to diagnostic centres, laboratories and pharmacies, and more than Rs 26 crore to digital solution companies.

Additionally, more than 2,200 healthcare facilities have been onboarded via ‘e-Sushrut Clinic’ platform, which is a lightweight hospital management information system developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to help smaller clinics digitise patient records and administrative processes.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by Education Post)