The National eHealth
Authority of India (NeHAI) should be set up immediately to formulate the National
eHealth Strategy (NeHS) for India and to initiate the necessary capacity
building. It requires creating and sustaining multi-disciplinary teams of
people with the right mix of clinical, technical, managerial and
organizational skills. Sometimes engaging marketing experts and
establishing a good service infrastructure to support eHealth services, e.g.,
to citizens, will be essential.
It should have the following:
Vision / Goals:
• To
guide the adoption of e-Health solutions of national and state importance for
India, and,
•
To facilitate the implementation of
e-Health by integrating and harmonizing the standards for health information
exchange in India
It is often said that neither ICT applications, nor information by itself bring benefits. The gains can come
from changes in processes or working practices that are more substantial than
replacing paper with an electronic document, which may have been the trigger to
benefit realization.
For more complex eHealth investments, these multi-disciplinary teams
should include people who themselves, have a multi-disciplinary background.
Having completed the process, their extensive knowledge and expertise in this
field have been enhanced by the experience.
Outcomes and Impact of
eHealth:
- Improved timeliness (better quality of healthcare delivery)
- Effectiveness (right intervention / audit trails for adverse events)
- Efficiency (less resources in terms of manpower, time and cost)
- Informed patients and their caregivers
- Better access
Source: www.ehealth-impact.org
§Benefits of “asynchronous telehealth”:
§ Diagnostic accuracy,
§ Reduced waiting times,
§ Better referral management and
§ Greater satisfaction with services
§With the worldwide explosion in the use of mobile
phones and mobile Internet, Behavioral changes needed foe benefitting health
can be through
§ SMS-based services,
§ Live and asynchronous telemedicine, and
§ Interactive voice response service
(IVRS)
Reasons for Urgency and Alternatives:
- The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) had recommended formation of National Health Information Authority (NHIA) in 2008. It has not been set up in these 6 years.
- Currently DPR for Mission Mode Project (Health) is about to be finalized and that recommends formation of the Authority (NHIA / NeHAI). However, the National eHealth Strategy (NeHS) is yet to be formulated. Once NeHAI is in place, the NeHS can ensure smooth adoption of eHealth throughout the country by formulating a robust NeHS.
- EHR Standards have been notified by MoHFW in September 2013 without any guiding NeHS from NeHAI. Therefore, lots of parallel non-interoperable eHealth activities are being undertaken in various states by both public and private healthcare providers.
- MoHFW has paid for India to be a member country and has the national license of SNOMED-CT since April 2014. However, SNOMED-CT is yet to be available for free public access in India as a membership benefit. Initially CBHI was supposed to be the National Release Centre (NRC) for SNOMED-CT. Now C-DAC, Pune has been temporarily made the NRC till the time NeHAI is set up. The SNOMED-CT is still not publicly accessible.
- Process for Cabinet note preparation for NeHAI (10 months’ timeline) has been started as it was in the Election Manifesto 2014 of BJP.
- To address the above points,
- Immediate Executive Order may be passed to set up NeHAI, or,
- A post may be created for “Advisor to the PM for eHealth” to guide and expedite the whole process.
