Nadda launches voice-based 24/7 toll-free National Health Portal

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, J.P. Nadda on Thursday said that superior outcomes in health care in India will be better achieved with innovations in health practices and products, and urged states to give priority to innovations and best practices.

Nadda inaugurated the three-day National Summit on Best Practices and Innovations in Healthcare in India.

The Health Minister launched the National Health Innovations Portal which will be a repository of all innovations contributed by the states.

The Health Minister also launched a voice-based web portal for 24/7 toll-free health services.

The NHP Voice Web is a 24/7 toll free helpline (1800-180-1104) wherein the caller can get authentic health information on various topics ranging from handy health tips, disease based information, Government health policies and programs.

This advanced system is capable of recognising user voice input and currently the information is available in five languages namely English, Hindi, Tamil, Bangla and Gujarati, more Indian languages would be covered.

The intent of using telephone technology as a medium to disseminate information is to reach out to masses in remote locations, where there is no internet access thus overcoming the barrier of illiteracy.

While addressing the participants from various states, Nadda stated that the summit is an effort to systematically identify innovations which can have a high impact to address morbidity and mortality and facilitate their prompt scale up through a platform, which would provide repository, learnings, information on enabling milieu and cross-learnings.

Senior officers from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare including C.K. Mishra, AS and MD, Manoj Jhalani, JS (P), Rakesh Kumar, JS (RCH, IEC) along with representatives from the states, technical and donor partners of the Ministry participated in the National Summit.