Dr V K Paul emphasizes prioritizing creation of a strong primary healthcare system

New Delhi: Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog inaugurated a National Conference on “Universal Access to Healthcare: Digital Solutions”.

The day-long conference, organised by NHRC in collaboration with the Sankala Foundation and supported by the NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, brings together practitioners, government officials, leading experts, innovators and policy makers in the field of healthcare and digital healthcare technology to explore the way forward for universal access to affordable and quality healthcare services especially for people living in rural, remote and hilly areas.

Addressing the occasion, Dr V K Paul highlighted that transformative changes are taking place across the health sector in India. Noting that “a strong primary healthcare system is a high priority for reducing the healthcare burden in later ages”, he emphasized the steps being taken to particularly strengthen this network.

Dr Paul underlined the following five key principles for digital health solutions including the first one being use of digital technologies and scaling them for saturation. The second one is creating new technologies like robotics, AI etc., but in a way that it does not increase the digital divide and can be easily used by those who are not digitally literate. the third one is to ensure solutions are within the ambit of rights and promote inclusivity, protection of human rights and further democratization, with attention to protect the beneficiaries from cyber fraud. The fourth one is digital solutions should promote or create an ecosystem of ease of living and not make it more complex for people. The fifth one is that digital solutions must enhance quality of life, embrace wellbeing, include traditional knowledge, and accelerate our healthcare actions.

Apurva Chandra, Union Health Secretary and Bharat Lal, Secretary General, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India were also present.

Apurva Chandra stated that one of the goals of national digital mission is to increase the reach of healthcare services and reduce the disparity between rural and urban areas.

The Union Health Secretary highlighted the success of CoWIN and Aarogya Setu app which helped in delivering more than 220 crore vaccinations across the country. He stated that the Union Government wants to replicate the same model through the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, a flagship scheme of the government. He also highlighted that there are already many portals operating across different segments like telemedicine, TeleManas, eRaktKosh etc and the effort is to combine them in a single portal.

Apurva Chandra also informed about the upcoming launch of U-Win portal later this month which will keep a permanent digital record of vaccination and medicines of more than 3 cr pregnant women and mothers and almost 2.7 cr children born annually. He mentioned about the progress in bringing about the National Health Claims Exchange which will promote greater transparency and ease the process of insurance claims and also touched upon the work going on in the areas of artificial intelligence.

Bharat Lal said that “healthcare is a basic human right and without good health, the full potential of a human being cannot be realised.” He highlighted that the scope of NHRC has increased from economic to the domain of socio-cultural sectors and since the health sector impacts everyone, it is currently engaged in this sector as well.

Stating that “digital technologies hold tremendous promise for leapfrogging towards achievement of the goal of universal healthcare”, he emphasized the importance of engaging with all the stakeholders towards improving the quality of life through such solutions. He also stated that NHRC is involved in various healthcare initiatives involving issues like mental health, leprosy etc.

During the occasion, the dignitaries also released a report on `Leveraging Digital Solutions for Universal Health Coverage’ based on the research and field study carried out by the Sankala Foundation. Three technical sessions on `Models of Change in Healthcare’, `Future Frontiers in Digital Health’, and `Technology-enabled Universal Health Coverage’ will be held during the day-long event.

Madhukar Kumar Bhagat, Joint Secretary (E-Health); Dr Basant Garg, Addl. CEO, National Health Authority; Girish Krishnamurthy, CEO and Managing Director, Tata MD, innovators from civil society and start-ups, domain experts from WHO, UNDP and senior officials from the Union Government and states were present at the event.