To ensure more participation of healthcare providers, especially private hospitals in the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), Karnataka is setting up two microsites in Belagavi and Mysuru districts. A microsite is a cluster of all small and mid-sized clinics, nursing homes, hospitals, labs, pharmacies, and other healthcare facilities that are ABDM-enabled and offer digital health services to patients.
Since the nationwide launch of ABDM in September 2021, one of the major challenges in ABDM adoption has been the limited involvement of private healthcare providers. In Karnataka, less than 25% of the 46,628 verified health facilities are from the private sector.
Based on Mumbai pilot
The NHA launched the 100 Microsites Project in the country, based on the learnings from a pilot done at Mumbai.
State Health Commissioner Randeep D., who is also the State ABDM Mission Director, told The Hindu that the Microsite Project is aimed at establishing an ecosystem within a particular geographic area where there is complete ABDM adoption by patients, healthcare providers and health facilities and the entire patient journey is digitised.
“Within the microsite, all health facilities and healthcare professionals, especially from the private sector, will be registered on ABDM’s Health Facility Registration (HFR) and Health Professional Registration (HPR) respectively, followed by installation of ABDM-enabled Health Management Information System (HMIS). The patients visiting these facilities will also become a part of ABDM with their health records linked to their ABHA which would then be accessible to them on their mobile through personal health records applications like ABHA App,” he explained.
“We are planning to set up five such microsites and to begin with, one each will be established in Belagavi and Mysuru districts. The proposal is to cover 1,843 and 2,459 healthcare facilities in Belagavi and Mysuru, respectively,” he said.
He appealed to all the private healthcare providers to actively participate in the initiative and register themselves under ABDM. “Front-runners of this digital initiative will be recognized by the government as ABDM Champions and celebrated as role models,” he pointed out.
Top in registration
Vasanth Kumar D.E., Assistant Deputy Director (e-Health), said Karnataka has been consistently ranking number one in the registration of health facilities and is in the second position in the registration of healthcare professionals under ABDM. “The State holds the first position with 46,628 health facilities registered in the HFR. Under the HPR, a total of 40,116 professionals have been registered, the second highest,” he said.
Karnataka has so far created 2.48 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHAs). With this, Karnataka is in the 8th position in terms of ABHAs created. Of the total 44.45 crore ABHAs created in the country, Uttar Pradesh is the highest contributor with 4.54 crore as on Wednesday. With 88.96 lakh personal health records of patients in Karnataka linked to ABHAs, the State is in the 10th position in this category, he added.
