Connectivity brought digital health card scheme to Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: While the National Digital Health Mission has been launched in seven UTs, including Chandigarh, the city was taken in the pilot project before the launch by the mission’s head. In fact, both connectivity and health facilities drew the attention of the top officials in the PMO to start the mission here.
UT administrator V P Badnore said, “We have touched nearly 4.5 lakh users under Aarogya Setu application here. When it was started here, I got a call from the PM who was keen to know the number of the registered users under it. The health ID card is a new national initiative and we want to stay ahead of other cities.”

What does the national launch of the scheme imply for the city? “There will be paperless medical health records stored in the application. So, after registration, a unique ID is generated which can be shared with the diagnostics centres or any health facility. These health providers can upload the records/investigations and the same can be accessed by any doctor you want to show during consultation,” said Dr G Dewan, director health services.
What will this digital health record achieve? “Besides providing consultation while sitting anywhere in the world, the data generated can help us to know available resources and where all such resources need to be deployed. Also, we can understand the diseases pattern and predict the incidence of diseases,” said Prof Rajendra Gupta, chairman of the drafting committee for digital health standards at the national level. He said, “e health will be able to generate a minimum of 10 million jobs in the country.”
In fact, the CEO of National Health Authority (NHA), Dr Indu Bhushan, had recently visited the city. Prior to this, there was also an official visit from the NHA, which had asked for a survey report from the health officials. “We conducted the survey for the digital health mission and provided them the data of the number of doctors, healthcare facilities and specialisations available,” said Dr Dewan. He said, “The doctors of the Sector 16 government hospital have furnished all the information about themselves. Now it is for the residents here and other health providers to fill in the details.”