Digital health aptly utilised to manage Covid: Pravin Pawar tells BRICS ministerial conclave

The two waves of COVID-19 posed unique challenges for India that warranted an effective and a humane centralised response sensitive to regional needs and digital health was aptly utilised to manage the pandemic, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said on Friday.

Addressing the BRICS ministerial conclave through video-conference, she spoke about India's priorities towards full adoption of digital health technologies at all levels and the grouping's strategy in building a cadre of competent health informatics professionals using a standardised curriculum across BRICS countries, a health ministry statement said.

The panel discussed challenges and opportunities during the implementation of digital health.

India's expectations from the development of a repository of evidence-based digital technologies and innovations for health systems (under BRICS) and India's strategic approach to sustain the gains from use of digital innovations during COVID-19 in a sustainable manner towards building health systems resilience were also discussed.

Pawar acknowledged that digital health has become the priority in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the statement said. ''The two waves presented us with unique challenges for which an effective and humane centralised response sensitive to regional needs was warranted. The digital health was aptly utilised to manage the pandemic and enabled us for a much more scientific and data driven approach for strengthening our response,'' she was quoted as saying in the statement.

Elaborating on India's National Digital Health Blueprint as an overarching architectural framework for digital initiatives in India, she said, ''We are implementing the recommendations for streamlining the digital health programmes through National Digital Health Mission (NDHM). NDHM through the issue of Unique Health ID will create a single source of truth for facilities and practitioners and lead to extension of various health services through digital mode.'' Pawar informed that India's immediate field level priorities for creating an ecosystem of digital health includes Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) implementation in all district hospitals for real time clinical management, affordable and accessible medical consultation to every citizen through telemedicine and establishing a framework for health disaster management integrating all stakeholders.

On the creation of a pool of human resource for managing pandemic digitally, the minister showcased how India leveraged iGoT (online training platform) to train more than 16 million Covid warriors across the spectrum to manage Covid which includes doctors, paramedic, nurses, community participants etc, the statement said.

Pawar highlighted that BRICS digital health platform is the need of the hour to ensure health data availability across BRICS countries in an interoperable manner to ensure continuum of care.

''We need to work closely and collaboratively to create a repository of evidence-based digital health best practices for global good. Such framework should enable data sharing and availability and help in augment the global capabilities to coordinate, capture and share data for protection from disease outbreaks like the present COVID-19 pandemic,'' she said.

Speaking on the technologies adopted during COVID-19, she said, ''We initiated a robust mechanism through a national Covid portal which integrated surveillance, testing, logistic management, data driven analytics etc. We popularised Arogya Setu and ITIHAS application - Digital Surveillance Application to source data from citizens and to predict the upcoming hotpots in the community.'' Arogya Setu became one of the most downloaded application with more than 201 million downloads, Pawar said. ''Similarly, to take health services to the doorstep of citizen, we are augmenting the national telemedicine platform (eSanjeevani) of India and establishing telemedicine hubs with dedicated doctors in all districts. The hubs will serve all facilities in their region, for both Covid and non-Covid healthcare support.'' She also highlighted how some of these platforms will have a lasting impact on public health.

India is leveraging the Disease Surveillance Programme through an integrated health information platform which source real time data from facilities on 33 epidemic prone diseases for community surveillance, she said.

''India is undertaking the world's largest vaccine drive and the whole effort is being managed through digital tool, Co-WIN (winning over Covid). Co-WIN has been declared as a global good by government of India for adoption by any country for managing their vaccination drive, not only limiting to Covid but for conventional immunisation also,'' Pawar stated.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)