Towards “Sarve Santu Niramay” - India’s e-Health Revolution

Published: 27th Jan, 2021

Towards “Sarve Santu Niramay” - India’s e-Health Revolution

What is eHealth? According to World Health Organisation (WHO), it is defined as: "...the cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies in support of the health and health-related fields including healthcare, health surveillance and health education, knowledge and research.”
G Eysenbach has identified the “10 e’s in eHealth”. These are efficiency, enhancing quality, evidence-based, empowerment, encouragement, education, enabling, extending of scope, ethics, and

National Digital Health Mission (NDMH)

National Digital Health Mission is holistic, voluntary healthcare programme which will integrate doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, insurance companies and make a digital health infrastructure.
Under this scheme, Health 10 will be given to every Indian. This health account will contain details of every test, every disease, the doctors visited, the medicines taken and the diagnosis.
This information will be very useful as it is portable and easily accessible even if the patient shifts to new place and visits a new doctor.

The National Digital Health Blueprint envisages achievement of the following objectives:

To establish state-of-the-art digital health systems
To establish National and Regional Registries
To enforce adoption of open standards
To create a system of Personal Health Records
To promote development of enterprise-class health application systems
To ensure National portability
To promote the use of Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Systems

Other eHealth Initiatives

National Health Portal-NHP by the Health Ministry provides information to citizens and stakeholders to create awareness amongst the citizens about health Government programmes and services in Health Sector.
E-Hospital@NIC is Hospital Management System, is a workflow based ICT solution for hospitals specifically meant for the hospitals in the Government Sector.
Online Registration System (ORS), launched in 2015 provides services to citizens for taking online registration & appointment, payment of fees, online viewing diagnostic reports, enquiring availability of blood online etc. In various public hospitals.
‘MeraAspatal’ is a Health Ministry initiative to capture patient feedback for the services received at the hospital through user friendly multiple channels such as short Message Service (SMS), mobile application, etc.
“SUGAM” is a “single window” platform for multiple stakeholders involved in CDSCO such as Pharma Industry, Regulators, and Citizens. It enables online submission of applications, their tracking, processing & grant of approvals online mainly for drugs, clinical trials, ethics committee, medical devices, vaccines and cosmetics.
PMSMA Mobile App for reporting pregnancy care related information from across the states under Pradhan MantriSurakshitMatritvaAbhiyan.
Health Management Information System (HMIS) is a web-based portal for monitoring the programmes under National Health Mission (NHM).
Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS)/ Reproductive Child Health (RCH) Application is an individual-based tracking system to facilitate timely delivery of antenatal and postnatal care services and immunization to children with an objective of improving IMR, MMR, & morbidity.
Kilkaridelivers free, weekly, time-appropriate 72 audio messages about pregnancy, child birth and child care delivery to families' mobile phones.
TB Patient Monitoring System "Nikshay" tracks individuals for treatment-adherence.
Tobacco Cessation Programme is a mobile-based interventional initiative for counselling and helping people to quit tobacco.
Hospital Information System (HIS) is being implemented in hospitals for automation of hospital processes to achieve better efficiency and service delivery in Public Health facilities upto CHC level.
e-RaktKosh is a comprehensive, efficient and total quality management approach with the help of online systems and is being rolled out for all the licensed blood banks in public and private health facilities.
e-Sanjeevani: Transforming the Medical Landscape, it is a digital platform for provisioning of health services. Rapid adoption of eSanjeevaniOPD across the country has accelerated the launch of a wide range of speciality and super-speciality OPDs.
eVIN (Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network) is aimed at strengthening immunisation supply chain systems in India. It aims to provide real-time information on vaccine stocks and flows, and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country.