More than one lakh government and private health care facilities covered under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)
More than one lakh health care facilities across government and private sector have been successfully onboarded in the Health Facility Registry (HFR) under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). This historic milestone paves the way for greater adoption of digital health platforms and services across the country.
ABDM is the flagship scheme of the government being implemented by National Health Authority (NHA). Health Facility Registry (HFR) which is being built under the ABDM is a comprehensive repository of health facilities of the country across modern and traditional systems of medicine. It includes both public and private health facilities including hospitals, clinics, diagnostic laboratories and imaging centers.
The ABDM aims to create a seamless online platform that will enable interoperability within the digital healthcare ecosystem. Under this scheme, every citizen can get a digital health ID and the health records would be digitally protected. The mission aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country.
ABDM has developed building blocks and interoperable APIs (Application Programming Interface) to offer a seamless digital healthcare experience for all stakeholders – health facilities, patients and healthcare professionals. One of the key building blocks is the Health Facility Registry.
Elaborating on the significance of HFR, Dr. R.S. Sharma, CEO, NHA said – “Our aim is to build a trusted national platform where patients can easily get details of registered healthcare professionals and health facilities across the country. We have seen enthusiastic participation of both public and private sector health facilities which have now become a part of this national registry. Patients can easily search the ABDM network for registered facilities across different systems of medicine like modern medicine (Allopathic), Ayurveda, Dentistry, Homeopathy, Physiotherapy, Unani, Siddha or Sowa Rigpa. Similarly, we have the ABHA numbers for patients and Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) for professionals like doctors, nurses and paramedics. These national registries will help in making quality healthcare accessible and affordable for all.”
Registration in HFR allows listing of the health facilities on a trusted national platform and enables health facilities to get connected to India’s digital health ecosystem through ABDM compliant software solutions. This will help citizens seeking healthcare services by improving the discovery of health facilities through the soon to be launched Unified Health Interface. Facilities can register through the website https://facility.abdm.gov.in/ or through various integrators such as health-tech players.
Among the verified facilities, around 97% belong to the government sector. Highest number of verified health facilities are in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Assam.
More details on the verified/ registered facilities under the HFR based on their ownership (public or private), systems of medicine and the state/ UT wise performance are available on the ABDM public dashboard https://dashboard.abdm.gov.in/abdm/. The charts show daily, monthly and cumulative trends in the progress of this national level registry.
Each health facility in the registry has a unique identifier, which is used to map the facility across the ABDM ecosystem and provide comprehensive data on all private and public health facilities in the country. This unique identifier can be utilized (via consented-access) by other entities such as ABDM compliant software solutions to identify the facility, retrieve and use required facility data for required purposes.
It may be noted that Ayushman Bharat Yojana scheme offers health insurance cover to beneficiaries without any premium cost, treatment cost during and after the hospitalization. Ayushman Bharat scheme covers both pre and post hospitalization expense in-addition to the in-patient charges.
