India to have electronic database system for healthcare by 2020

India: J.P. Nadda, Union Health Minister of India said on Thursday that the government is targeting to establish a database system which is fully electronic across all the districts in India. "We are aiming at establishing an electronic database in all its districts by the year 2020, to reduce the burden of paper-based data collection, recording, and storage," Nadda said while speaking at 2nd International Conference on Primary Health Care (PHC) which was towards UHC (United Health Care) and SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals),' organised at Astana in Kazakhstan. This will have a huge positive impact on the healthcare industry of the country. The Health Ministry at present has three common applications which are in use throughout the country at Health and Wellness Centers -- for Non Communicable Diseases (NCD), Reproductive Child Health (RCH), and TB. The Union Health Minister also mentioned, “Over time we will progress towards an interoperable Comprehensive Primary Healthcare application." Nadda said that other initiatives in digital Health IT comprise of an Inter-operable Electronic Health Records (EHR) System, Personal Health Record Management System (PHRMS), Patient Feedback System (MeraAspatal), National Identification Number (NIN) for both public as well as private health facilities. It is supposed to be a unique identification number for all health facilities. According to BlueWeave Consulting, Online Registration System (ORS) is a framework which will link various hospitals for registration through online portals and appointments, online diagnostic reports and enquiring regarding the availability of blood online. According to the Union Health Minister, the government has been making improvements and developments regarding child health, maternal and communicable diseases. India has been focusing on improving, outreaching and primary health care services for people. It has also established referral linkages which comprise of transport and strengthened secondary care services. It has essentially focused on new-born, maternal, child health, nutrition, and communicable disease. Thus, with the implementation of the electronic database for all records that are now manually done in most of the public hospitals, the data will be more secured. This will have an enormous positive impact on the healthcare industry in the country and also boost the industry to grow further.