NHA pulls up MP, TN, Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Telangana, Delhi for not registering public health units

New Delhi: The National Health Authority (NHA) has asked eight states, including some of India’s top performers in terms of health indicators, to complete registration of state government-run public health facilities on the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) platform by September 30.

Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Telangana and Delhi are yet to verify government-run health facilities for inclusion in the Health Facilities Register (HFR). Except for Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, all other states have non-Bharatiya Janata Party governments.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are undoubtedly among the top performers in Niti Aayog’s Health Outcomes Performance Index.

The HFR is one of the pillars of the ABDM, the central plan that aims to create a national digital health ecosystem. It aims to be a comprehensive repository of the country’s health facilities across all medical systems (public and private health facilities, including hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, etc.).

Health facility registration

The creation of the Health Register for all health facilities is the first step towards the digitalisation of the country’s health system. Currently, 320,000 health facilities are registered in the Health Register.

There is a big difference between the facilities listed in the National Repository of Health Resources (NHRR), which is an older database, and those registered in HFR.

The NHRR was set up in 2018, also to collect data from all public and private healthcare institutions in India. This was done with the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI), under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

For example, Tamil Nadu has 15,769 public hospitals in the NHRR database, but only 500 are registered in the HFR; while Odisha has 9,096 public hospitals in the NHRR and only four are registered in the HFR. Similarly, Uttarakhand has around 3,184 public hospitals in the NHRR, but 1,855 in the HFR, and Delhi has 1,811 public health institutions in the NHRR, but 999 in the HFR.

“At present, not all public health facilities in some states have registered themselves on the HFR. The NHA is also offering a solution for bulk upload of public facilities on the ABDM ecosystem by the State Mission Directors. In this regard, they are requested to use the bulk upload facility for public health facilities or at least convey instructions to all state government-owned health facilities to register themselves on the HFR by September 30, 2024,” said Dr Basant Garg, Additional Executive Director, NHA, in a communication to all state governments reviewed by Mint.

“In particular, the states of Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Telangana and Delhi are requested to look into this issue specifically,” the official added.

Earlier, the NHA had directed all state governments to expedite the verification process of hospitals listed on the ABDM platform. The verification is done to ensure that these hospitals are not fraudulent and that the information submitted is correct.

The ABDM has a key mandate to develop digital health IDs for citizens, though these Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) IDs are voluntary.

To date, around 660 million health IDs have been created for citizens that allow them to exchange medical records and are accessible to physicians within the ABDM network.

Queries sent to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health went unanswered.