The Role of basic research in reimagining India’s Healthcare System
Format
Online
Course
Price
Free
About The Course
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have traditionally been closed systems, sometimes incapable of sharing access across platforms within the same institution, and seldom across vendors at independent institutions.
While more systems now allow patients to access their health-related data, few EHRs give patients control over how their data will move across institutions or would be shared between providers.
The government of India announced a massive public health insurance scheme extending coverage to 500 million citizens, in effect making it the world’s largest insurance program. To meet this target, the government will rely on technology to effectively scale services, monitor quality, and ensure accountability.
While India has seen great strides in informational technology development and outsourcing, cellular phone penetration, cloud computing, and financial technology, the digital health ecosystem is in its nascent stages and has been waiting for a catalyst to seed the system.
This National Health Protection Scheme is expected to provide this impetus for widespread adoption. However, health data in India are mostly not digitised. Like privacy, health research has high value to society. It can provide important information about disease trends and risk factors, outcomes of treatment or public health interventions, functional abilities, patterns of care, and health care costs and use.