India mandates medical colleges to issue ABHA patient IDs in digital health push

India’s National Medical Commission (NMC) has directed that all medical colleges must generate and issue patient IDs to all those seeking their services.

The body made the call in a letter to these colleges early this month, in a move that seeks to create a unified digital health ecosystem for the country.

Going by the directive, each college is called upon to create a unique Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID to be issued either to outpatients, inpatients or those in need of emergency health services.

The NMC says the National Health Authority, which recommended it, has made it easier to register for the ID, which is described as “an important pre-requisite for objective verification of the clinical workload.”

It will be a 14-digit number that shall be connected to a patient’s health record and will be obtained on a voluntary basis. Thanks to it, patients can securely store and share their medical records including prescriptions, lab reports, and diagnoses, across different hospitals and clinics.

According to the NMC, which is India’s medical education regulator, the move will help in the fight against fake medical data provided by medical colleges as some of them have allegedly been inflating patient numbers during official inspections to appear busier or more credible.

To register for the ABHA ID, patients can use their Aadhaar through the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and the Hospital Management Information System of the given health facility, and authentication can be completed either via an Aadhaar-linked OTP or biometrics. Registration can also be done through a QR-based system. For those who already have one, colleges have been told they can retrieve it by using the registered mobile number.
Apart from ensuring transparency and making the assessment of the functioning of medical colleges fairer, the introduction of the ABHA ID is part of the larger Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), India’s ambitious push to create an integrated, citizen-centric digital health ecosystem.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  healthcare  |  India  |  patient identification