National Digital Health Blueprint will modernize healthcare system in India: J. Satyanarayana

New Delhi: J. Satyanarayana, Chairman of the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) committee in his keynote address at the 15th India Digital Summit outlining the conceptual underpinnings of NDHB said that the committee was driven by the goal of elevating standards of care across the healthcare sector, by defining guidelines for technology-driven capacity building. The chairman defined the goals of the blueprint as ‘Universal health coverage, quality, and continuum of care.’

He said the blueprint delineates several metrics for the development of digital infrastructure to ensure equitable, interoperable, and accessible technology that could be adopted across all stakeholders involved with healthcare. “Such technology will also facilitate the creation of a healthcare ecosystem, a necessity for modernizing standard of care in India. A healthcare ecosystem will enable healthcare providers to maintain patient records, seamlessly process coverage claims, and transfer patients easily,” Satyanarayana said.

Chairman, NDHB Committee also acknowledged the privacy risks associated with the digitization of medical infrastructure in India. The chairman addressed these concerns by expressing the NDHB committee’s commitment to privacy by design, minimalistic collection, purpose limitation and informed consent. The chairman also clarified that the ‘Digital ID’ provided by the scheme would not mandatorily have to be linked to Aadhar, and that data would not be centralized under the vision of the NDHB.

J. Satyanarayana concluded the address by mentioning that a pilot of the blueprint is being conducted in 6 union territories. The challenges of digitizing rural healthcare providers have become clear through the pilot, and specific technological solutions are being designed under the guidance of the committee to solve these problems.

The Government of India envisioned in the National Health Policy, 2017, an infrastructure for digitizing and strengthening India’s public health ecosystem. This vision came to fruition in form of the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB); an architecture for the various stakeholders involved in public health to improve cooperation and standard of care, using digital infrastructure to build capacity.

IDS 2021 will have speakers who are leaders in their own fields and from industries such as Logistics, FinTech, AdTech, Digital Health and beyond.  The conference will also see industry stalwarts like Sanjeev Bikchandani of Infoedge, Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip, Vijay Sekhar Sharma of Paytm, Rajan Anandan of Sequioa Capital, Ajit Mohan of Facebook share their insights with the delegates. 

The event will comprise of six tracks: Building National Digital Infrastructure; Marketing for the Masses; Innovative digital services beyond the first 100 million paid customers; Digitally Recharging Small and Medium Business; Digital Policies from Global Perspective but Indian Reality; Nurturing Indian Startups.