A unique health identification number, along the lines of Aadhar, with industry participation might soon be a reality.
The healthcare wing of industry body — Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) — along with the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) will join hands to give wings and a new dimension to the e-health card project to be headed by the Union health ministry.
The project will be given the responsibility to create a health database for the people across the country.
As a first step, officials from IIT-KGP were invited to a recent meeting held here along these lines.
“We had a joint meeting recently. Ficci and IIT-KGP have decided to explore possibilities to assist the health ministry in creating a health database of citizens. This will be an electronic data national grid or a kind of data portability. From the industry side, we may do the coordination works to join different groups involved in the health sector, while IIT-KGP will look into the technological aspects,” said Anjan Bose, chairman of Ficci health services committee.
However, he made it clear that only initial level of talks have started and the concept is yet to take off, though Ficci is trying to take it forward.
The project would be implemented on a pilot basis once the permission for the country’s oldest IIT’s proposed medical school comes through.
According to the industry body, the card will have all the medical details of a person and can be handy if one shifts city or hospital.
When asked about this, a top official from IIT-KGP confirmed that it would work with Ficci for developing the technical know-how required for the implementation of the project.
“The idea behind creating a data bank of the population and its medical situation will be to assist the needy ones with insurance as and when they need it,” said a professor at IIT-KGP.
The curriculum for the institute’s medical school would have an ‘Outreach Programme’ which will work out assistance plans for those living below the poverty line.
Possibly, this Outreach Programme, would function as the pilot project for the larger medical database and insurance plan which would then be merged, he said.
Also, IIT-KGP might provide expertise in telemedicine, an area in which it has already conducted joint projects with the School of Tropical Medicine, coming up with a software providing low bandwidth x-ray.
IIT-KGP, established in 1951, has more than 9000 students currently. When asked whether it would be used for the insurance sector, Bose said, “Though health cards are used by some groups, those are islands of excellence which we want to centralise.”
As reported in: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/ficci-iit-kharagpur-join-hands-for-uid-in-health/442962/