Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday said that India has taken a "quantum leap" towards leveraging digital health solutions for effective health service delivery in his keynote address at the Global Conference on Digital Health in Delhi. The conference focuses on the role of digital health in the seamless delivery of healthcare services, ensuring universal health coverage.
"Government of India believes that digital tools have immense potential and can play a critical role in strengthening and transforming healthcare delivery system," Mandaviya said.
Mandaviya, in his speech, also emphasized the importance of digital transformation and the utilisation of various approaches to broaden India's scope of providing healthcare.
"Digital transformation requires multi-pronged efforts with special emphasis on leveraging cutting edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and both logic and AI-based clinical decision support system to add to the overall vision of digital health ecosystem," Mandaviya said
The two-day long conference concluded today and was attended by several health leaders from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MohFW) and the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office — the two hosts.
Mandaviya was joined on the dais by WHO SEARO members Singh and moderator Dr Pem Nagyal along with the health minister of the Marshall Islands Joe Bejang and delegates from Denmark, Mozambique, Oman, the United States and the European Union.
Some of the attendees include Mandaviya, Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Additional Secretary Lav Agrawal from the MoHFW. From the WHO SEARO, Directors Poonam Khetrapal, Alain Labrique and Manoj Jhalani attended the meeting.
The conference followed the theme of "Taking Universal Health Coverage to the last Citizen" and touched upon several topics such as India's technological advancements in the digital health sector and the importance of data-driven policymaking.
In his opening address yesterday, Mandaviya highlighted India's achievements in the digital health space.
He echoed them during his keynote address on Tuesday, noting that India has created a name-based data page of 200 plus million eligible couples. Lauding the nation's capacity to scale technological advancements, Mandaviya said that they were monitoring 114 million pregnant women and 120 million children for anti-natal, post-natal and immunisation-related health services.
In this year's Budget, the allocation for India's Ayushman Bharat National Digital Health Mission has been bumped by 70.51 percent to Rs 341.02 crore.
Days ahead of World Tuberculosis Day on March 24, Mandaviya also mentioned the National TB Elimination Programme under which 11 million patients are being tracked.
He also mentioned several pan-India applications, including the e-Sanjeevani and COVID e-Sanjeevani, the world's largest telemedicine network, which has conducted more than 100 million teleconsultations so far.
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The government has initiated the creation of a registered registry for patients, unique patient IDs, health provider registers and health facility registers under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Mandaviya said.
The health minister closed out his speech by suggesting three policy enablers that every government should prioritize, such as establishing digital architectural frameworks for a country, ensuring standardisation of data, and integrating multiple applications for data-driven policymaking.
"It is time to move from 'silos to systems' with collaboration of all countries for enhanced coverage and quality of healthcare services," he said on Monday during his opening comments.
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