The National Health Authority, chasing the mission of digitising healthcare in India, is working on creating a separate cadre of officers who specialise in “digital health”.
The apex body responsible for implementing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has tied up with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, to connect “engineers” with the world of “medicine and healthcare”.
Similarly, it has approached the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad and IIM Udaipur to teach digital health to management students.
The big challenge
As the ABDM, launched on September 27, 2021, aims to enable patients’ interaction with doctors while allowing them to receive digital lab reports, prescriptions, and diagnoses on a single platform, one of the biggest challenges it faces in the rollout is encouraging healthcare professionals and patients to use digital platforms.
“The idea is to form a cadre of people who are well versed in understanding the world of medicine, identifying the need of healthcare professionals and patients and then building digital health products for them,” Himanshu Burad, officer on special duty (OSD) to additional CEO at the National Health Authority (NHA) told News18. “From managing hospitals to making new products, software and solutions for the medical fraternity – we need a different set of expertise to usher into this new era of health tech.”
These skilled people will help stimulate innovation further and take the development of the digital health ecosystem to the next level similar to what has been seen in other industries like fintech, etc, said Burad.
Working with IITs and IIMs
With IIT Mumbai, the NHA is developing a curriculum of “health informatics” for various levels including MTech and PhD programmes. Presently, it already offers an interdisciplinary dual degree programme (IDDP) in healthcare informatics, a PhD in digital health and a minor programme in healthcare informatics. It will soon offer an MTech programme in healthcare informatics.
IIM Udaipur already runs a programme for digital product management. While the conversation with IIMs is still at a preliminary level, the talks are over a programme focused on healthcare.
In April, News18 reported that the NHA is designing a curriculum on digital health for MBBS students.
Dr Basant Garg, additional CEO at the NHA, earlier told News18 that the authority aims to make future doctors familiar with the concept of digital health and this is its top agenda.
The process is going on as it involves multiple stakeholders including the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the ministry of health and family welfare.
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