The National Digital Health Mission is a welcome step towards improving the delivery of health services in the country. Digitised health records become portable across hospitals and geography, lend themselves to medical research, clinical research, economic research as to costs and comparative costs and improved insurance. However, digitisation of personal data calls for specific protection, of data integrity and data security. The government needs to put in place not just cyber defence systems, but a data protection law that will protect data in general and specifically prevent arbitrary State intrusion into citizen data.

India’s healthcare system has many deficiencies — inadequate access to reliable healthcare, paucity of trained professionals, high out-of-pocket expense without any guarantee of quality. While healthcare funding must go up sharply, digitisation of health records can help create efficiencies and help leverage investments for greater coverage and impact. The four key features are health ID, personal health records, Digi Doctor and health facility registry. The ability to access an individual’s complete medical records is a major step forward in provision of quality healthcare, particularly for migrant populations. Anonymised health data can be critical for research. The Covid-19 experience has highlighted the need for stepping up healthcare services and research, it has also demonstrated the value of being able to anticipate healthcare needs. Access to health data can be critical for designing policy interventions based on region and demography. Technology is not a substitute for investments in brick-and-mortar healthcare facilities or training more personnel, but to augment their efficiency. Telemedicine is another aspect of this effort, critical in the face of probable future epidemics, and of use for serving people outside India as well.

Digital healthcare will open up opportunities for a host of startups innovating in this area. How and on what terms data would be made available to them assumes importance. This calls for clarity, as well.