Digitising health records in India

 19-Jul-16, The Pioneer

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has been a long-sought goal for India. The quest for a universal safety net for health-related expenditure is important for a country where less than 14 per cent of the rural households have access to any form of health insurance.

Image: The Hindu

In a UHC regime, with the participation of private insurers, a well-functioning EMR system can help insurers design and optimise their products, while providing easy portability for patients between providers.

The adoption of EHR has been inconsistent and more is prevalent in private hospitals. Even in case of hospitals that have adopted EHR, the systems do not always meet interoperability norms.

Some serious challenges impede the adoption of system-wide EHR in India. More than 34.8 per cent of the population relies on private non-institutional points of care like single doctor clinics. Smaller clinics do not transition to EHR due to the high initial investment involved.

This, along with the incomplete coverage of Aadhar as a unique and multipurpose identifier for linking EHRs poses significant issues for implementation. The availability of IT infrastructure and Internet connectivity in rural health centres also remains poor.

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