Private health tech companies partner with govt health scheme to shorten hospital queues | Mint

New Delhi: As many as 15 health tech companies have integrated with the government’s digital health mission, with their apps helping patients access health records and other digital healthcare services to cut down long queues at clinics and hospitals.

Companies partnering the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) include Driefcase, Aarogya One, Bajaj Health, Practo, and Ambula Technologies.

As one of the key services of ABDM is the faster OPD registration service for the patients via ABHA’s QR code share based ‘scan and share’, patients can now use any of these ABDM enabled apps application to share their profile with the hospital and doctors.

The ‘scan and share’ facility is running in more than 18,000 health facilities across all states and UTs.

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The idea is to minimize the problems of standing in long queues for registration at the hospital and eliminate the chances of medical errors, ensuring continuity of treatment and do away with hard prescription copies.

It also facilitates creating and maintaining health records of a patient and empowering individuals to manage and share their health information with doctors after the consent of the patient.

Taking it forward, the National Health Authority (NHA), which implements ABDM, has now directed all the states/UTs to actively encourage citizens to use these apps.

“Some of the private PHR applications companies are also providing assistance, by way of manpower support, to assist the patients in registering using the ABHA based QR registration services,” the NHA said in a communication to the Mission Directors in the States/UTs.

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Abhinav Lal, co-founder and CTO, Practo said, “By integrating with ABDM, patients can use the app to create their ABHA registration and utilize the benefits of the national digital health ecosystem. This will enable them to utilize features like Scan and Share, to identify facilities that fit their needs, facilitate informed decisions, and improve outcomes.”

“We believe that a strong partnership between private platforms and public initiatives is essential for building a robust and inclusive digital healthcare future for India,” Lal said.

ABDM has three components–Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), a digital health ID for each person, and Health Facility Registry (HFR).

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Notably, the government’s Digital India initiative has given a push to the digital health sector. With greater accessibility of internet across the country, the ABDM, launched in September 2021, will lead to equitable healthcare and connecting the last link to universal health coverage in an accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely, and safe manner.

“DRiefcase was the first private PHR app to be approved by NHA. We have the highest share in ‘Scan and Share’ OPD registration among PHR apps. DRiefcase has tirelessly worked with NHA and state governments to successfully reduce patient waiting times by hours, significantly enhancing their experience. This is just the beginning. The future use cases of ABDM like record sharing, Universal Health Interface (UHI) and National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX) can make Indian healthcare experience the best in the world,” said Sohit Kapoor, founder, DRiefcase.

Other firms mentioned above could not be contacted.