Why in News?

• The National Health Authority (NHA) under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) introduced the ‘Scan and Share’ service for faster outpatient department (OPD) registrations in 2022.
• According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), up to five lakh patients have benefited since last year due to QR code-enabled registration at hospital counters, which has helped reduce long queues. 

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What is Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)?
• What is the Background in which the ABDM was Launched and its Significance?
• How has ABDM Performed?
• News Summary Regarding ‘Scan and Share’ Service under the ABDM 

What is Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)?

• Launched in 2021 during the third anniversary of the Ayushman Bharat PM Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), ABDM will connect the digital health solutions of hospitals across the country with each other.
• The Mission will not only make the processes of hospitals simplified but also will increase ease of living.
• The Digital Ecosystem will also enable a host of other facilities like Digital Consultation, Consent of patients in letting medical practitioners access their records, etc.
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• With the implementation of this scheme, old medical records cannot get lost as every record will be stored digitally.
• In order to create a National Digital Health Ecosystem, the NHA acts as the implementing agency of the mission.
  • An attached office of the MoHFW with full functional autonomy, NHA is constituted for implementing AB PM-JAY.
• The Health Facility Registry (HFR) is the core building block of ABDM that aims to serve as a single source for verified information on health facilities across the country.

What is the Background in which the ABDM was Launched and its Significance?

• In a follow-up of the National Health Policy's (NHP) 2017 specific goals for adopting digital technologies, the MoHFW constituted a committee headed by Shri J. Satyanarayana.
• This committee produced the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB), laying out the building blocks and an action plan to comprehensively and holistically implement digital health.
• Taking forward the NDHB, a digital ecosystem for healthcare services across the country (ABDM) was launched.
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 How has ABDM Performed?

• Since nationwide launch, ABDM has achieved significant growth with over -
  • 23 crore ABHA numbers (earlier known as Health ID),
  • 14 Lakh health facilities registered in the HFR,
  • 33 thousand healthcare professionals under the Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR),
• With more individuals, healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, paramedics, etc.) joining ABDM, digitisation of health records at their point of creation is now possible.

 News Summary Regarding ‘Scan and Share’ Service under the ABDM:

• The service is currently provided in 125 districts across 25 States and UTs and it is a typical example of how technology can be leveraged to provide better services to patients and to improve the system efficiency.
• The participating hospitals (365), both government and private, display their unique QR codes in patient-registration areas.
• The patients can scan the QR code using any health application such as ABHA app, Aarogya Setu app, EkaCare, DRiefcase, Bajaj Health or PayTM.
• The patients then share information like name, age, gender, and unique health ID [ABHA number] to the Health Management Information system [HMIS] of the hospital.
• This enables paperless registration, instant token generation, saves patients’ time and the health facility is able to optimise resources deployed for registration.
• This process also leads to the patient’s health records getting digitally linked to their Ayushman Bharat Health Account. Patients can manage and access this from their phone anytime anywhere.