J&K accelerates towards digital healthcare integration: Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo reviews progress on Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

• Over 94 Lakh ABHA IDs created, 100% Public Health Facilities Digitized; Focus on Seamless data integration and patient empowerment reaffirmed

SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today chaired a meeting to review implementation of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) in Jammu and Kashmir with a focus on ensuring seamless integration of healthcare data and digital services across the UT. The meeting was attended by Secretary, Health & Medical Education; Managing Director, ABDM; Principals of Government Medical Colleges; Director Coordination (Medical Colleges) and other senior officers of the Department.

Taking stock of the ongoing initiatives under ABDM, the Chief Secretary underscored the urgency of linking patient health records with ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) IDs, emphasizing that no stone should be left unturned to complete this vital digital transition without any further delay. He called for interlinking of Sehat, ABDM and HMIS portals, to create a unified digital ecosystem that empowers the patients, healthcare professionals and institutions to access and share data effortlessly through a single platform.

 Dulloo stressed that continuous updating of patient health records must be ensured so that individuals need not carry paper records when visiting any hospital or doctor. He called for universal implementation of the Scan and Share facility across all health institutions. He directed the department to rationalize manpower, especially for data entry tasks critical to success of the HMIS module.

In a significant push towards improving accountability and data integrity, the Chief Secretary instructed the department to expedite the Health Professional Registry (HPR) and take strict measures against professionals delaying compliance. He also advised for seeking technical support from BISAG-N to professionally and swiftly conclude digitization targets under the ABDM framework.

During the meeting, Secretary H&ME, Dr. Shah, briefed about the steps already taken to accelerate digital transformation. He highlighted the Department’s success in initiating the HPR, digitizing patient health records, integrating radio diagnostic reports with ABHA IDs and rolling out the Scan and Share facility in numerous health institutions.

He reaffirmed the Department’s commitment towards ensuring full saturation of these initiatives within a defined timeline. He delineated the strategies that are going to accomplish the mission satisfactorily across all the healthcare facilities in J&K. Adding to the deliberations, MD ABDM, Anant Dwivedi, outlined the mission’s three core pillars including ABHA ID, Health Professional Registry (HPR) and the Health Facility Registry (HFR). He informed that J&K has made notable strides in all these domains.

As per the latest figures, it was informed that 94.49 lakh ABHA IDs have been created, covering 69.7% of the target population. It was further revealed that 100% registration of all 3,607 public health facilities (HFR) has been completed besides 87% registration of public doctors (6,713 out of 7,730) and 100% registration of public nurses (5,149) has been achieved.

Moreover, 20.58 lakh digital health records have been linked with ABHA IDs, with 1.44 lakh new records added since May. Additionally, 104 out of 105 health facilities are now actively using the HMIS (JK-e Sahaj) portal. Notably, 71.16 lakh Scan and Share tokens have been generated so far, as was informed in this meeting.

These milestones reflect the UT’s firm commitment towards harnessing technology for better healthcare delivery. The Chief Secretary lauded the department for the progress and stressed on sustaining momentum to ensure full digital inclusion of all citizens in the futuristic health ecosystem in the days to come.