Health secy Chandra urges states, UTs to link ABHA IDs with health portals

The Union Health Secretary has urged states and union territories to take necessary action to link Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) with various health portals, such as Reproductive Child Health (RCH), National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NIKSHAY), among others.

As per the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) dashboard, total ABHA IDs created in the country as on April 3, 2024 is 5,894.60 lakhs, Health Secretary Apurva Chandra said.

However, total beneficiaries linked with ABHA under Non-communicable diseases (NCD), Sickle cell, RCH, NIKSHAY, National Viral Hepatitis Control Program (NVHCP) and Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme (PMNDP) are only 827.99 lakhs, 0.89 lakhs, 15.78 lakhs, 2.46 lakhs, 0.056 lakhs and 0.17 lakhs, respectively, he said.

"This shows that though the states have taken huge interest in creation of the IDs but non linking of health records with these IDs is not allowing the stakeholders, including the patients, from reaping the benefits of digital health records," the health secretary said.

"You are, therefore, requested to kindly take necessary action for linkage of existing beneficiaries with ABHA in the various portals and do regular review of the progress at your level," he stated in a letter to all the state and UT governments.

Chandra said the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 27, 2021 and all the health facilities in the country are to take part in this mission.

Further, via Health Facility Registry and Health Professional Registry, the ABDM platform has to be utilised to the optimum extent, he said in the letter.

"In this regard, all states and UTs have been requested in the past through a letter on June 13, 2023 for the 100 per cent compliance in ABHA seeding on various portals. Some states and UTs have shown impressive progress in the creation of ABHA IDs," he said.

Chandra said currently, beneficiaries are being linked with ABHA under various health portals like NCD, Sickle Cell, Reproductive and Child Health (RCH), NIKSHAY, NVHCP and PMNDP, etc.

Additionally, states and UTs have to link the beneficiaries under the IDSP-IHIP (Integrated Health Information Platform) portal, the health secretary said in the letter.

Under the ABDM, citizens can create their ABHA numbers, to which their digital health records can be linked. This will allow patients to hassle-free access and digitally share their health records.

This will enable creation of longitudinal health records for individuals across various healthcare providers, and improve clinical decision making by healthcare providers, officials said.