Govt initiatives: National Digital Health Mission (NDHM)

The Hon’ble Prime Minister, on the 73rd Independence Day, announced a new initiative for digital India – the National Digital Health Mission. This is a very crucial and much needed initiative for developing modern healthcare infrastructure. The system integrates Knowledge Management System (KMS) for maintaining the healthcare records and patient history. Apart from adding convenience for patients and medical practitioners, this will also keep data on drugs pertaining to its efficacy, and hence shall help drug developers greatly. Moreover, this will improve transparency in systems and prevent corruption. The primary challenge for the mission is lower penetration of digitalization in healthcare among low and mid-tier set ups. However, this is prominent in Hospital Chains such as Apollo, Fortis. Other challenge would be reluctance and resistance from medical practitioners, who follow and favour traditional methods. Government must ideally follow the policy of rewarding the KMS practises in healthcare, while implementing efficient compliance guidelines.