“Generation of Health IDs should be mandatory, a priori step prior to the planned rollout of HDRP,” the Telemedicine Society of India (TSI) and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education Research (PGIMER) Chandigarh said in their response to the National Health Authority’s Health Data Retention Policy (HDRP) consultation paper. TSI comprises doctors from different parts of the country, looking to raise awareness about telemedicine.
Curiously, the Delhi NCR and Tamil Nadu chapters of TSI sent in their comments separately from the central body. While the TSI-PGIMER submission sought to link Aadhaar with health IDs, mandatory Health ID generation, etc., the two regional chapters demanded longer data retention periods, new types of data classifications, and more. Provision for a “relational database of family members or kin” should be created as the Unique Health IDs would be linked to Aadhaar, TSI-PGIMER said.
The HDRP lays down conditions on how to handle citizens’ health data for entities enrolled in the government’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and, potentially, those beyond it as well. The ABDM is the government’s project that looks to digitise the health records of citizens, develop a teleconsultation platform called the Unified Health Interface (UHI), and more.
The ABDM looks to facilitate teleconsultations across the country in response to India’s understaffed healthcare sector. However, telemedicine has been a touchy subject for doctors and other stakeholders after the Bombay High Court ruled against two doctors for offering teleconsultations in 2018. In 2020, the Health Ministry notified the telemedicine guidelines.
Source: medianama.com
