The National Health Authority, Government of India, recently celebrated four years of its flagship Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PM-JAY) and one year of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). To mark the double anniversaries of AB PM-JAY and ABDM, NHA organized a two-day event, called Arogya Manthan 2022 on September 25 and 26, 2022 in New Delhi. ACCESS Health India was among the select non-government, health systems partners invited to the event. ACCESS Health Regional Director South Asia and InOrder President Dr. Krishna Reddy Nallamalla was a panelist at one of the sessions.
AB PM-JAY is among the largest Government funded health assurance schemes in the world, providing health assurance of up to Rs.5 Lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary healthcare hospitalizations. Over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable entitled families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) are eligible for these benefits. The program recently completed four years since its launch on 23rd September 2018. The ABDM completed its first anniversary since its launch on 27th September 2021.
Titled “International best practices in Digital Health”, the session saw the presence of international panelists who shared experiences in digital health ecosystem from their part of the world. The objectives of this session were understanding the similarities and difference between the digital health structure in India and in other countries, getting an insight into the best practices with respect to digital health, getting an overview of the digital architecture in the healthcare sector, understanding the key challenges in the implementation of digital technology and adoption process both by healthcare providers and healthcare users, and understanding key issues in scalability, streamlining and efficiency improvement.
The other panelists at the session included Mr. Arun Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary (Health), Govt of Jharkhand, Mr. Vikram Pagaria, Joint Director, NHA, Dr. Holger Kaufmann, Chief Digital Officer, Australian Digital Health Agency, Prof Dennis Streveler, Professor of Medical Informatics, University of Hawaii, and Dr. Madis Tiik, Senior Lecturer, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.
Dr Reddy spoke on the need to create a health technology architecture to enable the integration of data collected across systems at the national level. He cited examples of digital health best practices come from non-health sector and stressed on UI and UX as important factors determining the usability of applications by healthcare workers. “Value creation of digital health comes when workers are able to use the applications and then use the data to make better decisions. Design technology should evolved as per user needs and functions,” Dr Reddy said. He also spoke of the need to apply different levers (financial, regulatory, market) to drive adoption of digital health.
The National Health Authority (NHA) is the apex body responsible for implementing PM-JAY. It has been entrusted with the role of designing the strategy, building technological infrastructure and implementing the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission to create a National Digital Health Eco-system. It is leading the implementation for ABDM in coordination with different ministries/departments of the Government of India, State Governments, and private sector/civil society organizations.
Watch the session here.