The Jammu and Kashmir Government today launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) in the Union Territory to improve equitable and easy access to quality healthcare and designated the Mission Director (MD) of the National Health Mission J&K as the MD of ABDM J&K in addition to giving approval for the establishment of his office.
According to a government directive released today, the ABDM office would be a part of the Directorate of National Health Mission J&K. In order to effectively implement ABDM’s daily operations per the Mission’s standards, it was further stated that the Mission Director ABDM must create a UT level team.
Further, to ensure seamless implementation of ABDM in the UT, Government nominated Dr Shafqat Khan (Officer on Special Duty in Health & Medical Education Department) as Additional Mission Director, ABDM J&K, in addition to his duties as Sectoral Expert and overall Incharge for strategizing and on boarding of public services through online platforms. He was also relieved from the role of OSD in H&ME Department with immediate effect.
According to Dr. Shafqat Khan in an interview with Excelsior, J&K residents would now receive a digital health ID under the ABDM. He added that the poor and middle class will gain the most from this effort and that all citizens’ health records will be digitally protected.
He stated that ABDM will build a seamless online platform based on the foundations established by the Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile (JAM) trinity and other government digital initiatives, appropriately leveraging open, interoperable, standards-based digital systems while ensuring the security, confidentiality, and privacy of health-related personal information. With their permission, it will allow access to and exchange of citizens’ longitudinal health records.
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, according to Dr. Khan, will have three main parts: a healthcare professional registry (HPR) and healthcare facilities registries (HFR), which will serve as a database of all healthcare providers from both contemporary and conventional medical systems; and a health ID for every citizen, which will also serve as their health account and to which personal health records can be linked and viewed with the aid of a mobile application.
He added that this objective will foster interoperability within the digital health ecosystem, comparable to the role played by the Unified Payments Interface in transforming payments. This would assure ease of doing business for physicians, hospitals, and healthcare service providers. The public will only need to click once the Mission is in place to access medical facilities, he noted.
