The National Digital Health Mission is an important part of the National Digital Health Blueprint introduced in 2019. The government of India inaugurated this important mission on August 15, 2020, to transform the country’s healthcare system through advanced digital technologies. It will help connect all the different stakeholders in the healthcare system by using digital networks and remove the communication gap between them.
Overview of the National Digital Health Mission
| Name of the Mission | National Digital Health Mission |
| Date of Commencement | 15th August 2020 |
| Name of the Ministry | National health mission under the Ministry of health and Family Welfare |
| Main Goal | To create a National digital health network for universal healthcare |
| Official site | www.niti.gov.in |
Objective of the National Digital Health Mission
The Government of India introduced the National Digital Health Mission under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to achieve the following objectives:
- Handling the digital health infrastructure to ensure smooth and seamless health services.
- Allowing people to access healthcare anywhere in the country.
- Making a standard health record for each person.
- Developing digital health systems and managing the main health data within them.
- Making reliable data of all healthcare facilities, workers, and medicines.
- It also focuses on digital identification, e-signatures, online payment, safe online contracts, and easy digital communication. Requiring all digital health stakeholders in India to follow open standards.
- Encouraging private companies to work together with public health institutions.
An important element of the National Digital Health Mission
- Electronic medical record.
- Health ID.
- Efficiency & Responsibility.
- HFR – Health Facility Registry.
- Simplify the services.
- NDHM health records.
- Enhanced research and development activities.
- Support the Government
- Connecting all components of healthcare.
Vision of NDHM
To build a national digital health system that offers safe, affordable, and accessible healthcare for everyone, provides reliable data and digital services, uses open and connected technologies, and protects the privacy and security of personal health information.
Key Obstacles for the NDHM
- Technology access, poverty, and language differences remain major concerns.
- Limited healthcare professionals make true informed consent for data safety hard to achieve.
- This kind of personal information is useful for insurance firms, global researchers, and drug companies.
- Data transfer and migration between states still have many errors and security issues.
- Spending only 1.3% of GDP on health limits India’s ability to offer equal and quality healthcare.