New Delhi: The Centre has asked all states to integrate government health programmes, schemes and portals with Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission to speed up a national digital health ID for citizens, even as experts cautioned about the need to build fool-proof data security.
The Centre’s push for speeding up Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA ID), comes at a time when the health ministry’s covid-19 vaccination portal has been reportedly hacked, though the government denied there was a direct data breach.
ABHA ID enables citizens to authenticate, access and manage their health records digitally and facilitates hospital and doctors’ appointments, helping patients avoid queues.
The health ministry has urged all state governments to ensure generation of ABHA ID for beneficiaries of the schemes. The reproductive and child health scheme, for instance, has around 5.4 million beneficiaries, the non-communicable disease portal 447 million beneficiaries, and the sickle cell portal 2.8 million beneficiaries. “The value proposition of ABDM is huge, as citizens will be able to view and share all their health records.