National Digital Health Mission: An Analysis

Profile of the Author: Sakshi Srivastav is a law student pursuing B.A.LL.B (Hons) from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab.

Introduction

On the occasion of 74th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of National Digital Health Mission (hereinafter referred to as NDHM), a revolutionary step in the Indian healthcare sector. Under this mission, every Indian Citizen will be given a unique health ID, digitized health records, as well as a registry of doctors and health facilities. [1]

This concept was first sought to be adopted for the Aayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) in 2018 [2], a Yojana launched to provide free healthcare service to low-Income population amounting to 40% of the total population [3], however, the central government then decided to make it a national policy, and not limited to 40% of the Indians. In line with this, a blueprint of the project was released in October 2019 for the public. This Mission, which is being supervised by National Health Authority (hereinafter referred to as NHA), has now been launched in 6 Union territories as a pilot project. [4] As per the Minister for Health, Dr. Harshvardhan, NHDM will be launched nationwide based on the initial learnings from these 6 UTs. [5]

The key features of NHDM

The primary aim of this Digital health ecosystem will be to provide every citizen with easy access to medical services by way of technology.

Under NHDM, a unique health ID will be issued to every consenting citizen and will essentially be a digital health record containing details of their diseases, diagnoses, report, medication, etc., in a common database through a single ID. [6]

Along with the Health ID, citizens will also be provided with other digital services inter-linked with the ID like DigiDoctor, Health Facility Registry, Personal Health Record, e-Pharmacy, and Telemedicine. [7] These 6 services will together form the building blocks of NHDM, developed to ensure an efficient, affordable, and timely healthcare network.

Regarding the operation of NDHM, the National Health Authority has stated that private stakeholders can also integrate with the building blocks of the Project and create their own products for the market; however, the ownership, maintenance, and operative power of core digital services will rest with the government. [8]

Benefits of NHDM

NHDM is a very needed and beneficial project in the sense that it adopts a “citizen-centric” approach in the ecosystem of healthcare. [9] At the core of this project are the interests of the citizens, who have hitherto been facing difficulties in getting treatment in various health facilities. With the help of the Health ID, an individual’s past health records with get stored in a single database, this database can then help doctors understand the health of their patients better and will enable them in providing efficient treatment. Presently this is not the case, if we consider the on-going pandemic then patients with comorbidities are very vulnerable and should the first ones to be tended to, however, due to inadequate medical records or the total absence of them, doctors in many instances have been unable to attend to such patients first.

So far, citizens have been carrying their records in the form of scores of medical reports, bills, and prescription papers; this too had been unsatisfactory owing to the inability of hospitals, especially the public ones, in providing proper health reports to individuals. Health IDs by providing a database of all the health records will thus help patients in getting quality treatment. Further, the need for the right doctors to be consulted will also be met by NHDM with the help of building blocks like the health facility registry and Digidoctors. In all, NHDM will help to create an efficient, transparent, affordable, and timely healthcare ecosystem.

Challenges to NHDM

There is no denying the fact that NHDM is a laudable step taken by the Central government for revolutionizing the health sector in India. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the issue of data protection here, especially in the light of the havoc created by the Aadhar project of the central government, providing for a unique identification number to every citizen. Data Protection laws in India are far from stringent and could be said to be utterly inadequate given their failure to meet the standard legal requirements of the modern digital age. Currently, the Statute regulating and facilitating the functioning of digital technology in India is the Information Technology Act of 2000 which was last amended in the year 2008, but the digital world has changed drastically since. The Data Protection Bill based on this report seeks major amendments in the IT Act, 2000 [10] but has not come into effect yet.

In an environment with weak data privacy and security laws, launching this Mission is a very bold step because if any data privacy issue arises with respect to health records then it would be highly detrimental to the interest of citizens.

Conclusion

The National Digital Health Mission is indeed a revolutionizing and step which will provide other nations with food for thought too. However, to ensure the effective implementation of the same, the NHA must double-check its accountability with respect to privacy. As welcoming as this Mission is, nothing could be more unwelcoming than any breach in our fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 [11] of the Indian Constitution. Also, it goes without saying that the Data Protection Bill must be passed soon to provide a secure environment for steps like these.

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FAQs

Q. What is the scope of market in digital health ?

Ans. The global digital health market was valued at around 88 billion U.S. dollars in 2018. According to recent forecasts, this figure is expected to increase to over 500 billion dollars by 2025.

References

[1] Enrique Dans, How India’s National Digital Health Mission Is Set To Revolutionize Healthcare, FORBES (Aug. 17th, 2020, 4:20 AM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2020/08/17/how-indias-national-digital-health-mission-is-set-to-revolutionize-healthcare/#4a2b74c11472.

[2] Ila Patnaik & Harleen Kaur, India needs a digital health mission. But it also needs data privacy law to ensure it works, THE PRINT (Aug. 21st, 2020, 8:30 AM), https://theprint.in/ilanomics/india-needs-a-digital-health-mission-but-it-also-needs-data-privacy-law-to-ensure-it-works/486111/.

[3] Enrique Dans, How India’s National Digital Health Mission Is Set To Revolutionize Healthcare, FORBES (Aug. 17th, 2020, 4:20 AM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2020/08/17/how-indias-national-digital-health-mission-is-set-to-revolutionize-healthcare/#4a2b74c11472.

[4] National Digital Health Mission rolled out on pilot mode in 6 union territories, THE TIMES OF INDIA (Aug. 15th, 2020, 9:25 PM), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/national-digital-health-mission-rolled-out-on-pilot-mode-in-6-union-territories/articleshow/77565648.cms.

[5] Ibid.

[6] National Digital Health Mission rolled out on pilot mode in 6 union territories, THE TIMES OF INDIA (Aug. 15th, 2020, 9:25 PM), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/national-digital-health-mission-rolled-out-on-pilot-mode-in-6-union-territories/articleshow/77565648.cms.

[7] National Digital Health Mission rolled out on pilot mode in 6 union territories, THE TIMES OF INDIA (Aug. 15th, 2020, 9:25 PM), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/national-digital-health-mission-rolled-out-on-pilot-mode-in-6-union-territories/articleshow/77565648.cms.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ila Patnaik & Harleen Kaur, India needs a digital health mission. But it also needs data privacy law to ensure it works, THE PRINT (Aug. 21st, 2020, 8:30 AM), https://theprint.in/ilanomics/india-needs-a-digital-health-mission-but-it-also-needs-data-privacy-law-to-ensure-it-works/486111/.

[10] Karishma Koshal, “With the data-protection bill in limbo, these policies contravene the right to privacy”, The Caravan, September 30, 2019, https://caravanmagazine.in/policy/right-to-privacy-data-protection-bill-policies

[11] INDIA CONST. art. 21.