Context: The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has crossed a landmark milestone by generating over 90 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHAs) across the country.
About The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM):
What It Is?
- The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is a flagship national digital public infrastructure (DPI) project implemented by the National Health Authority (NHA) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
- It functions as a single, unified digital highway that links various stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem—including citizens, doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and insurers.
Launched In: The mission was officially launched in September 2021.
Aim:
- The objective of ABDM is to develop an integrated, transparent, and interoperable digital health infrastructure for India.
- It aims to bridge the information gap between public and private healthcare entities, establish a single source of truth for health data, and hand citizens absolute ownership of their lifelong longitudinal health records.
Key Features and Building Blocks:
The ABDM architecture is powered by six foundational, open-standard components designed to drive frictionless data exchange across the nation:
- Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA): A unique, 14-digit digital health identifier assigned to citizens. It acts as the master key to securely compile, link, and share digital medical histories across different healthcare apps and facilities.
- Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR): A centralized, verified national repository of all licensed healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, and paramedical staff practicing across modern and traditional systems of medicine.
- Health Facility Registry (HFR): A comprehensive master registry of all public and private medical establishments, including hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and pharmacies across the country.
- Health Information Exchange & Consent Manager (HIE-CM): A secure data-routing architecture that ensures medical files are only transferred between doctors and patients using explicit, electronic, and revocable consent-based protocols.
- Unified Health Interface (HI): An open network protocol that allows patients to seamlessly schedule teleconsultations, book diagnostic slots, or look up medical services across any compliant application or portal.
- National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX): A digital platform designed to standardize, quicken, and automate the settlement of health insurance claims between hospitals and insurance providers.
