Strategy Overview: Making India a Digital Health Nation Enabling Digital Healthcare for all

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National Digital Health Mission




Strategy Overview


Making India a Digital Health Nation
Enabling Digital Healthcare for all










July 2020
—
National Health Authority






Table of Contents

S.No. Reference Page No.
Abbreviations 3-4
1. Context 5-7
1.1. Background 5
1.2. Vision 5
2. Objectives of National Digital Health Mission 5
2.1. Opportunity for National Digital Health Mission 6
2.2. Benefits and Impact 6
2.3. Guiding Principles 7
2.4. Scope 8-15
2.5. Introduction 8
2.6. Health Data 8
2.7. Health ID 12
2.8. Health Registries 13
2.9. Health Claims 14
2.10. Health Data Analytics 15
2.11. Open Telemedicine and e-Pharmacy Network 15
3. Implementation Arrangement 16-23
3.1. Governance Structure and Framework 16
3.2. Phased Implementation Methodology 17
3.3. Agile Implementation Methodology 19
3.4. Security and Privacy 19
3.5. Legal and Regulatory Requirement 19
3.6. Stakeholders and Stakeholder Engagement Plan 20
3.7. Procurement Strategy 20
3.8. Health Infrastructure 21
3.9. Resources and Support Requirements 21
3.10. Risks 22
3.11. Expected Outcomes 22
3.12. Conclusion 23
4. Annexures (1-6) 24-31
Abbreviations
Abbreviation Expansion
AB-PMJAY Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana
AERB Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
AI Artificial intelligence
API Application Programming Interface
ASHA Accredited Social Health Activist
AYUSH Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Sikka, Homeopathy
BoCW Building and other construction workers
CAPF Central Armed Police Forces
CCIM Central Council of Indian Medicine
CDAC Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
CDS Clinical decision support
CGHS Central Government Health Scheme
CME Continuing medical education
DGHS Directorate General of Health Services
EHR Electronic health record
EMR Electronic medical record
ESIC Employee State Insurance Corporation
FHIR-R4 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources Release 4
GCC Government Cloud Computing
GIA Grant-in-aid
GIS Geographic information system
GoI Government of India
HCP Health Claims Platform
HIP Health information provider – any entity that creates health information
pertaining to a user and is ready to share it digitally with users by adopting to
compliant software.
HIU Health information user – any entity that intends to view health records of an
individual, with their informed consent using compliant software.
IEC Information, education and communication
IndEA India Enterprise Architecture
IoT Internet of things
IPD In-patient department
IRDAI Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India
ISO International Organization of Standardization
IT Information technology
JAM Jan Dhan- AADHAR- Mobile Phone
JEA Just-enough-administration
JIT Just-in-time
KPI Key performance indicator
KYC Know Your Customer
LOINC Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes
M-Card Mobile card
MCI Medical Council of India
MeitY Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
MoHFW Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
NCD Non-communicable diseases
NDHB National Digital Health Blueprint
NDHM National Digital Health Mission
NeGD National eGovernance Division
NHA National Health Authority
NHP National Health Policy
NHRR National Health Resource Repository
NHS National Health Stack
NIC National Informatics Centre
NICSI National Informatics Centre Services Inc.
NIKSHAY National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme
NIN National identification number
NMC National Medical Commission
NQAS National Quality Assurance Standards
OPD Out-patient department
OT Operation theatre
OTP One-time password
PACS Picture archiving and communication system
PHR Personal Health Record
PNDT Pre-natal diagnostic techniques
POC Privacy Operations Centre
PTCA Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty
RCH Reproductive and child health
ROHINI Registry of hospitals in network of Insurers
SDG Sustainable Development Goals
SNOMED-CT Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine -- Clinical Terms)
SOC Security Operations Centre
TPAs Third party administrator
UHC Universal health coverage
UTs Union Territory
VPC Virtual Private Cloud
WCD Women and Child Development Chapter 1
1. Context of the Mission

1.1. Background
1.1.1. The National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 has the following goal:
“The attainment of the highest possible level of health and wellbeing for all at all ages, through a
preventive and promotive health care orientation in all developmental policies, and universal
access to good quality health care services without anyone having to face financial hardship as a
consequence.”

1.1.2. In a follow-up of the NHP’s specific goals for adopting digital technologies, the Ministry of Health
and Family Welfare constituted a committee headed by Shri J. Satyanarayana to develop an
implementation framework for the National Health Stack. This committee produced the National
Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB), laying out the building blocks and an action plan to
comprehensively and holistically implement digital health.

1.1.3. Taking forward the NDHB, this document describes the broad context, rationale, scope, and
implementation arrangements for a digital ecosystem for healthcare services across the country.
Since the implementation is envisioned to be in a mission mode, the initiative is referred to as the
National Digital Health Mission (NDHM).

1.2. Vision of National Digital Health Mission
1.2.1. To create a national digital health ecosystem that supports universal health coverage in an
efficient, accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely and safe manner, that provides a wide-range of
data, information and infrastructure services, duly leveraging open, interoperable, standards-
based digital systems, and ensures the security, confidentiality and privacy of health-related
personal information.

1.3. Objectives of National Digital Health Mission
1.3.1. To strengthen the accessibility and equity of health services, including continuum of care with
citizen as the owner of data, in a holistic healthcare programme approach leveraging IT &
associated technologies and support the existing health systems in a ‘citizen-centric’ approach, the
NDHM envisages the following specific objectives:
1. To establish state-of-the-art digital health systems, to manage the core digital health data, and
the infrastructure required for its seamless exchange;
2. To establish registries at appropriate level to create single source of truth in respect of clinical
establishments, healthcare professionals, health workers, drugs and pharmacies;
3. To enforce adoption of open standards by all national digital health stakeholders;
4. To create a system of personal health records, based on international standards, easily
accessible to individuals and healthcare professionals and services providers, based on
individual’s informed consent;
5. To promote development of enterprise-class health application systems with a special focus on
achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for health;
6. To adopt the best principles of cooperative federalism while working with the States and Union
Territories for the realization of the vision;
7. To ensure that the healthcare institutions and professionals in the private sector participate
actively with public health authorities in the building of the NDHM, through a combination of
prescription and promotion; 8. To ensure national portability in the provision of health services;
9. To promote the use of clinical decision support (CDS) systems by health professionals and
practitioners;
10. To promote a better management of the health sector leveraging health data analytics and
medical research;
11. To provide for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of governance at all levels;
12. To support effective steps being taken for ensuring quality of healthcare; and
13. To strengthen existing health information systems, by ensuring their conformity with the
defined standards and integration with the proposed NDHM.

1.4. Opportunity for the National Digital Health Mission
1.4.1. The current strong public digital infrastructure—including that related to Aadhaar, Unified
Payments Interface and wide reach of the Internet and mobile phones (JAM trinity) —provides a
strong platform for establishing the building blocks of NDHM. The existing ability to digitally
identify people, doctors, and health facilities, facilitate electronic signatures, ensure non-
repudiable contracts, make paperless payments, securely store digital records, and contact people
provide opportunities to streamline healthcare information through digital management.

1.4.2. Ayushman Bharat—Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) has successfully used the
available public digital infrastructure to provide end-to-end services through an information
technology (IT) platform from identification of beneficiaries to their admission and treatment in
hospitals to their discharge and paperless payment to hospitals. The experience of AB-PMJAY can
be leveraged to expand the reach of digital health to all residents and develop an open and inter-
operable health management system that empowers residents, healthcare providers, the
Government and researchers.

1.4.3. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things (IoT), Blockchain and
cloud computing provide additional opportunities for facilitating a more holistic digital health
ecosystem, that can increase the equitable access to health services, improve health outcomes and
reduce costs.

1.5. Benefits and Impact
1.5.1. The implementation of NDHM is expected to significantly improve the efficiency, effectiveness,
and transparency of health service delivery overall. Patients will be able to securely store and
access their medical records (such as prescriptions, diagnostic reports and discharge summaries),
and share them with health care providers to ensure appropriate treatment and follow-up. They
will also have access to more accurate information on health facilities and service providers.
Further, they will have the option to access health services remotely through tele-consultation and
e-pharmacy. NDHM will empower individuals with accurate information to enable informed
decision making and increase accountability of healthcare providers.

1.5.2. NDHM will provide choice to individuals to access both public and private health services, facilitate
compliance with laid down guidelines and protocols, and ensure transparency in pricing of services
and accountability for the health services being rendered.

1.5.3. Similarly, health care professionals across disciplines will have better access to patient’s medical
history (with the necessary informed consent) for prescribing more appropriate and effective
health interventions. The integrated ecosystem will also enable better continuum of care. NDHM
will help digitize the claims process and enable faster reimbursement. This will enhance the overall
ease of providing services amongst the health care providers.
1.5.4. At the same time, policy makers and programme managers will have better access to data, enabling
more informed decision making by the Government. Better quality of macro and micro-level data
will enable advanced analytics, usage of health-biomarkers and better preventive healthcare. It
will also enable geography and demography-based monitoring and appropriate decision making to
inform design and strengthen implementation of health programmes and policies.

1.5.5. Finally, researchers will greatly benefit from the availability of such aggregated information as they
will be able to study and evaluate the effectiveness of various programmes and interventions.
NDHM would facilitate a comprehensive feedback loop between researchers, policymakers, and
providers.

1.6. Guiding Principles

1.6.1. The NDHM will be designed, developed, deployed, operated and maintained by the Government
in accordance with the guiding principles as laid out in NDHB. The NDHM guiding principles are as
follows:

1.6.2. Business Principles (Health Domain Principles)
1. NDHM will be wellness-centric and wellness-driven - Wellness centres and mobile screening
teams will be strengthened through real-time access to personal health records.
2. NDHM will educate and empower individuals to avail a wide range of health and wellness
services - Mass awareness and education will be promoted through use of appropriate
platforms and a portfolio of Health Apps.
3. NDHM systems will be designed to be inclusive - Specialized systems will be designed to reach
out to the “unconnected”, digitally illiterate, remote, hilly, and tribal areas.
4. NHDM will ensure security and privacy by design - A National Policy on Security of Health
Systems and Privacy of Personal Health Records will be developed, in accordance with the PDP
Bill 2019. All the building blocks that require handling personal health records will be designed
to comply with such a policy at the outset.
5. NDHM will be designed to measure and display the performance and accountability of all health
service providers - Real-time monitoring of performance of all health institutions and
professionals against agreed KPIs will be done across service levels of the health sector and
published.
6. NDHM will have a national footprint and will enable seamless portability across the country
through a Health ID – Personal Health Identifier, with supporting blocks, including adoption of
Health Information Standards will play a pivotal role in national portability.
7. The eco-system of NDHM will be built basing on the principle, “Think big, start small, scale fast”
- NDHM will adopt a combination of strategies like taking a minimalistic approach for designing
each building block, prioritizing and sequencing of the development/ launch of these blocks,
and designing a technology architecture that can rapidly and agilely scale horizontally and
vertically.

1.6.3. Technology Principles
1. NDHM will be developed by adopting India Enterprise Architecture Framework (IndEA) - The
design of the building blocks of NDHM will adopt and conform to IndEA by default. All the
design and development efforts will adopt the Agile IndEA Framework notified by MeitY.
2. All the building blocks and components of NDHM will conform to open standards, be
interoperable and based on Open Source Software products and open source development - The
policy on Open Standards and Open Source Software, notified by MeitY, GoI, will be adopted in designing of the building blocks and in all procurements. Interoperability will be inherent to
all the building blocks.
3. Federated Architecture will be adopted in all aspects of NDHM - Only the identified Core
Building Blocks will be developed and maintained centrally. All other building blocks will be
designed to be operated in a federated model that factors regional, state-level and institution-
level platforms and systems to function independently but in an interoperable manner. As
defined in NDHM, the data will be federated and stored close to the point of generation.
4. NDHM will be an Open API-based ecosystem - All the building Blocks will be architected
adopting the Open API Policy notified by MeitY, GoI and will share data as per standards as
defined in NDHB. Security and Privacy will be built into the design and development of the APIs,
which should be audited for security and privacy before deployment.
5. All major legacy systems will be assessed for conformance to NDHB principles and leveraged to
the extent feasible - Compliance of legacy systems to the Blueprint principles and Agile IndEA
principles will be assessed through an appropriately designed assessment tool to evaluate the
current conformance and effort required to integrate them with NDHM. Only those legacy
systems that cross the bar will be allowed to operate within the eco-system. However, the
useful data about healthcare providers, labs, patients available in the legacy applications will
be leveraged and utilized to the extent possible, leading to savings in time and effort in
collecting such information again.
6. All the components, building blocks, registries, and artefacts of NDHM will be designed
adopting a minimalistic approach - Easy, early, and collective adoption of the Blueprint by
majority will be critical to its success. Hence every component of the Blueprint will be designed
to be minimalistic.
7. All the registries and other master databases of NDHM will be built as Single Source of Truth on
different aspects and backed by strong data governance - Rigid validation processes will be
applied to all mandatory ‘fields’, clear ownership and responsibilities will be defined for all core
databases and strong, dedicated data governance structures will be established at the State
and Central levels.
Chapter 2
2. Scope of the Mission

2.1. Introduction to the scope of NDHM

2.1.1. The National Digital Health Mission will implement the core and common digital building blocks
required for healthcare and make them accessible as digital public goods to both the public and
private ecosystem. The National Digital Health Blueprint identifies several of the building blocks
required to be developed (See Annexure 1).

2.1.2. The building blocks will be available as a collection of cloud-based services. Each service will
provide just one capability across multiple health services, accessible via simple open APIs, with
built-in security by design and adequate authentication, authorization, and access protocols as per
NDHB and notified from time to time by the Government. Together these will create a powerful
framework to enable better healthcare delivery and management for the country. Details on the
National Digital Health Blueprint are accessible at https://nha.gov.in/NDHB.

2.1.3. NDHM will need to develop a strong set of mandates and promotion to ensure adoption across
both public health and private ecosystems to help realize the vision of an inter-operable health
ecosystem.

2.2. Health Data
2.2.1. Health data is critical for creating holistic views of individuals, personalizing treatments, improving
communication between caregivers and individuals, and delivering better health outcomes. Health
data can be classified into the following categories:
1. Personal Health Data - Data related to an individual containing detailed information of various
health conditions and treatments. It includes any data with personally identifiable information
of various stakeholders, e.g. healthcare professionals.
2. Non-Personal Health Data - Includes aggregated health data like number of dengue cases and
anonymized health data where all personally identifiable information has been removed. This
will also include information about health facilities, drugs etc. which do not involve personally
identifiable information.

2.2.2. Healthcare providers create health data for patients/individuals during each encounter. Most
providers issue a physical copy of a health report to patients as part of the treatment. These
commonly include diagnostic reports, discharge summaries, prescriptions, and clinical notes. In-
patient case files such as OT notes are currently not shared unless requested by the patient.
The Mission will require healthcare providers to share a digital copy of any health reports being
physically shared with the patient to enable creation of longitudinal health records.

2.2.3. India is moving fast towards adoption of software systems in healthcare. The types of software
used to manage health information include:
1. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) - This refers to systems that are used within a hospital or a
clinic to support patient diagnosis and treatment and are transaction focused. NDHM requires
these systems to be updated to support standards and provide access of the data to patients.
2. Electronic Health Records (EHR) - EHRs contain records for a patient across multiple doctors
and providers and is used within a Healthcare system (like say across a state government) to
provide better care for patients 3. Personal Health Records (PHR) - PHRs enable patients to compile, update and keep a copy of
their own records that can help them better manage their care and are person focussed.

2.2.4. Federated Architecture of Health Data
1. NDHM will implement a federated health records exchange system that will enable patient
data to be held at point of care or at closest possible location to where it was created. Health
records will be accessible and shareable by the patient with appropriate consent and
complete control of the records will remain with the patient. An appropriate digital consent
framework as per standards specified by NDHB (leveraging DigiLocker consent management
framework to the extent possible) will be adopted for consent management.
2. To participate in the federated health records system, Health care providers are expected to
adopt software that enables them to become Health Information Providers (HIPs), also known
as Health Data Fiduciaries. This will be any entity that is creating health information pertaining
to a user and is ready to share it digitally with users by adopting to software compliant with
NDHM standards and policies. HIPs will keep a digital copy of both inpatient and outpatient
health records they issue to patients as per policy. The current guidelines issued by MoHFW
requires care providers to store medical records digitally indefinitely.
3. Till such time digital services are made mandatory, maintenance of physical records will be
required. While option of digital Health ID will be there, in case a person does not want Health
ID, then also treatment should be allowed.
4. HIPs will be required to ask patients for a Health ID, educate and create Health IDs for patients
as required, keep a link of the Health ID with the medical documents they produce, and issue
the medical documents only with patient’s consent. To become HIP, the health care facility
will be required to enrol in the NDHM health care infrastructure registry (Healthcare Facilities’
Registry).
5. Health information users (HIUs) will be able to request for health records of a patient. These
will be any entity that intends to view health records of an individual with consent of the
individual using compliant software. EMR systems, doctors, applications providing advice to
patients by looking at health records will need to implement HIU specifications. HIUs cannot
get any data without patient consent.
6. Many entities who are HIPs will also be HIUs. However, the two have largely independent
responsibilities with their own functions. Any entity intending to take either of the roles will
need to adhere to the guidelines specified for being a HIP or HIU. HIPs are fiduciaries of health
data storing the health records of individuals, wherein the HIUs are the
individuals/organizations who will request access to health data and get the same if consent
is given by the individual.

2.2.5. Formats and Adoption of Standards for Health Data
1. The NDHB has recommended several health data standards for adoption and use including
FHIR-R4, SNOMED-CT, LOINC, ICD10/11, as required and notified by Government from time to
time. The current adoption of standards is extremely poor across health care providers. The
Mission will follow a path that enables gradual adoption of standards by HIPs.
2. HIPs must share with patients, a digital version of any document already being given to the
patient like
a. Diagnostic reports - microbiology, pathology, and radiology
b. Discharge summaries -- for all inpatient treatments
c. Clinical Notes -- for inpatient and outpatient encounters
d. Prescriptions - medications, glasses
e. Immunization records 3. NDHM will publish the formats to be used by HIPs for each of these documents. HIPs must
ideally share the documents in standards compliant with FHIR-R4 resource format. For an initial
period, the design will allow for existing PDF and image files to be shared in a FHIR-R4 resource
wrapper.
It is envisaged that modern artificial intelligence (AI) techniques that can extract relevant
information from these existing health record formats will become rapidly available and help
HIPs in this transition to standards. NDHM will keep a check on the reliability of AI systems by
laying down guidelines and standards.
4. This adoption approach is expected to ensure patients and doctors get access to health records
in the current formats they are used to seeing today and gradually migrate to a standards-
based document format over time.

2.2.6. Health Data Anonymization and Aggregation
Every HIP will also produce aggregated health data, for example the number of dengue cases
or number of PTCAs performed each day. This aggregated data feed will become part of the
National Health Analytics architecture. “Anonymization” with respect to personal data, means
the irreversible process of transforming or converting personal data to a form in which a data
principal (owner/individual) cannot be identified. The NDHB recommends providing
Anonymization-as-a-Service that can be used by HIPs to anonymize data as close to the source
as possible. Non-personal health data both aggregated and anonymized are very important for
the development of the health ecosystem. Data classification into personal/non-personal will
be linked to the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019.

2.2.7. Health Data Legal Framework
1. The laws, rules and regulations pertaining to personal health data are predominantly covered
under the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 currently in the Parliament. The overall
framework of NDHM will be aligned with the framework of the draft Personal Data Protection
Bill. The draft Bill has provisions for issuance of sector specific regulations that are critical to
the implementation of NDHM. The federated health record exchange has been designed to be
compliant with the provisions of the draft Bill. The Government has set up a committee to
examine the regulations required for use of non-personal data as well. The recommendations
of this committee would be integral to finalize the policies related to access to non-personal
health data as part of NDHM and will be taken up in Phase 2/3 of the implementation of NDHM
as explained in Section 3.2 of this document.
2. Health records under NDHM are digitally signed and are equivalent to paper records under the
IT Act and can be used in legal scenarios like medico legal cases. Certain types of use of personal
health data are expected to be prohibited even if the data was provided with consent -- for
example usage of data for commercial promotions. A list of such use-cases will be finalized by
NDHM in consultation with MoHFW and other stakeholders.

2.2.8. Underlying Principles of Health Data Management
1. The following elements are part of the design of the federated health record ecosystem:
a. Individual Owned: All records and their components will be owned and controlled by
individuals —HIPs will be data fiduciaries.
Health Lockers: Patients will have choice to keep a copy of their records in their own
cloud store called Health Lockers. Patients will have the ability to store all records
through their lifetime in these lockers. Several Health Lockers will exist giving patients
adequate choice & security. DigiLocker initiative of NeGD, MeitY shall be the prioritized
choice for Health Lockers, while the individuals will be able to consider other options
too, with appropriate compliance as defined in NDHB. Digilocker will provide access to users of their electronic health records and will also provision for an instance of
Digilocker as Health Locker and storage infrastructure for this purpose, in case required
by MoHFW. The Government may also provision for appropriate IT Infrastructure
including storage for Health Lockers as the preferred choice.
b. Consent Driven Sharing: Health records will be accessible and shareable by the patient
with appropriate consent, and complete control of the records will remain with the
patient. The appropriate digital consent framework (leveraging DigiLocker consent
management framework to the extent possible) will be adopted for consent
management. The design supports delegated consent (from say a family member) and
deemed consents (medical emergencies handled by a doctor or specific requirements
by duly authorized law enforcement agencies).
c. Revoke Consents: HIUs are expected to implement the rules specified in consent
including time limitations. Individuals will have the right to review and revoke any
consent that has been issued. HIUs are required to implement the revocation and
provide a confirmation back to the user.
d. Partial Sharing: Individuals will have right to share only a part of their record with
doctors as per their will. However, in such a case, doctors will be informed that they are
being provided with partial information and can advise the patient that treatment
ability may be limited due to lack of full information.
e. Voluntary: Sign-up for PHRs will be voluntary and even after sign-up, a patient will have
the right to opt-out. Links to their documents across HIPs would be deleted.
f. Records from Govt Schemes: Government schemes—such as PMJAY, NIKSHAY—will
act as HIPs and issue any medical records from the scheme into patient PHRs.
g. Update of an Issued Health Record: If a health provider decides to update an already
issued health record, the original record and an audit trail of the change will be available
to the patient.
h. User Generated Data: Users can add reading from IoT and other devices like wearables
to their PHR. The data will be stored in the Health Locker which can act as a HIP for the
user. All user added data will be clearly and separately labelled to ensure care providers
can differentiate the data generated by other providers vis a vis those added by the
user.
i. Sharing Health Data: Patients will be allowed to share health data to any HIU with
consent.
j. Grievance: Users will be provided options to complain about misuse and have any
issues resolved.
k. Forget My Data: Users can opt out from linking their records across HIPs but cannot ask
HIPs to delete their data. HIPs are required to store the data for users for the period as
required by law. Users can only delete user uploaded data or the copy of the records
they have in their Health Locker. Anonymized data of individuals will be kept and
continue to be available for public health purposes, e.g. epidemiological or disease
burden research, etc.


l. Federated: The design ensures patient data will be held at point of care or closest
possible location where it was created, with no centralized repository. Even EHR data
repositories will be collection of links or URIs but not collection of health records. This
improves privacy and security. The organizations intending to be HIPs will be mandated
to follow the minimum standards as defined by NDHM including security, privacy, and
storage of data. The storage and security of HIP technology systems will be a part of the
overall certification to be done by STQC, MeitY as explained further in the document. m. Choice of Health Record Viewers: DigiLocker initiative of NeGD, MeitY shall be one of
the preferred choice of the Government as the Health Record Viewer, in addition to the
Health App to be built as a part of building blocks by the Government. In addition, other
front-end Apps to view the health records will be widely available and the choice of the
App will be with the individual; these Apps will manage the consent mechanisms,
sharing and display of information and will ensure security in collaboration with the
HIPs and other intermediaries. It will be ensured that there is no conflict of interest, and
that there is strong protection of PHR against unauthorized use with technical as well
as regulatory framework. The original data will remain close to the source, with the
individual having the right to retain offline soft copies, if needed. The individual will
have the ownership and control to link his/her health records. Front-end apps will not
be allowed to download and store the PHR of the patients and create their own
repositories. These will also not be allowed to use the patient data for any advertising,
commercial or profiling purposes. The Government may also provision for appropriate
IT Infrastructure including storage for Health Lockers as the preferred choice.

2.2.9. Health Data: Personal Health Records
1. NDHM will promote a federated Personal Health Record (PHR) architecture. Government
health systems and large organized corporates are expected to be early adopters, it is likely to
take some time to cover smaller hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centres in the network. To
ensure the same, NDHM will follow holistic approach and will take into account all types of
health systems to the extent possible. The Personal Health Record (PHR) will be a longitudinal
record for each individual on the system, comprising all health data, lab reports, treatment
details, discharge summaries etc. related to one episode or a set of episodes, across one or
multiple facilities.
2. HIPs, i.e. the facilities who have delivered the services maintain a portion of each individual
record. All health data will be made accessible to the individual via the Personal Health Record
and the individual will hold complete right to allow sharing or access to the same via the
finalized consent management framework.
3. The individual will be able to view the content of their health records via a web interface and a
mobile application. Access will be provided only after the user authenticates using any of the
authentication methods supported by the underlying Health ID. Sharing of health records must
be enabled only with consent. Applications must follow the consent (time, access etc.) as given
by the individual and related rules & regulations.
4. The Government will provide only platforms, gateways, or systems to get various players
connected with each other. Every individual/institution will have the option of storing the
documents on the platform it wishes to. It will never be mandatory that the records be
maintained on Government servers only. However, the Government will ensure that
individuals are able to get the services at no/low cost, if intended, through Government
platforms as well. Even in such Government systems, the Government will store these in
capacity as fiduciary. Conflict of interest and protection of PHR against unauthorised use or
access by any entity to be monitored and regulated through guidelines and enforcement
mechanism to be issued by NDHM.



5. The option will be given to all to use services of Government or private sector for storing their
health data as per their choice, with individual being the primary owner of her/his own health
data. The Personal Health Records will be available to the individual at all times.
2.3. Health ID

2.3.1. It is important to standardize the process of identification of an individual across healthcare
providers. This is the only way to ensure that the created medical records are issued to the correct
individual or accessed by HIU through appropriate consent.

2.3.2. Every patient who wishes to have their health records available digitally must start by creating a
Health ID. Each Health ID will be linked to a health data consent manager. Multiple health data
consent managers are likely to be available for patients to choose from. Health ID will be designed
to not require a physical card. Healthcare providers will be able to rapidly look up a Health ID by
searching on the ID, alias, mobile or Aadhaar number. The Health IDs can be presented in e-card
format(s) and issued to patients who need them.

2.3.3. Unique Health ID will be promoted. However, generation of Unique Health ID based on Aadhaar
authentication cannot be mandated for everyone. The concept of continuity of records,
recoverability of ID and retrievability in case of unconscious patient will be included in the design.


2.3.4. For those individuals intending to seek benefit of Government subsidy schemes (as notified u/s 7
of Aadhaar Act) and those who are willing to provide Aadhaar, Unique Health ID will be generated
based on Aadhaar, following the applicable statutory provisions and regulations.

2.3.5. For those individuals not intending to seek any benefit of Government subsidy schemes, the Health
ID may be generated after taking suitable precautions to verify the identity using email, mobile
number, or any reliable government-issued proof of identity. For such cases, a distinguishing
factor/flag at the backend, mapped to the health ID will be available.
2.3.6. Facility to link these IDs of one person will be available. Individuals shall be encouraged to move
towards linking these or towards single health ID and to obtain unique health ID based on Aadhaar.
2.3.7. The policies around issue of Health ID will be designed to ensure
1. No denial of health service to anyone in any scenario
2. No scope for medical errors arising out of wrong identification of the patient
2.3.8. Health ID shall be generated mainly in health facilities or during the first instance of patient with
health facilities. Health ID can also be issued in organizations that can work with population at
large, e.g. CSCs, schemes like PMJAY, CGHS etc. and self-registration with appropriate
authentication and authorization means with due checks and balances.
2.3.9. There shall be a proper mechanism to create Health ID in the system before implementation.
Aadhaar shall be linked wherever Government benefits are being given to the concerned
individual, making it unique. However, for others not taking any benefit from the Government,
alternative options may be made available.


2.3.10. Health ID Creation
1. Any public hospital, Community Health Centre or Health and Wellness Centre across India or
any healthcare provider that is included in the health infrastructure registry will be able to
support an individual in obtaining a Health ID. Patients can also obtain a Health ID by self-
registration from a mobile or a web application. To create the ID, the individual will need to
provide their basic individual, demographic and contact information to the consent manager
at the concerned health facility.
2. Health IDs will need to be digitally authenticatable to enable patients to provide their informed
consent. One option is linking the Health ID with Aadhaar, which will expand the ways in which authentication for informed consent can be performed - including biometric, face or OTP-based
authorization. The Health ID will be used for the purposes of uniquely identifying persons,
authenticating them, and threading their health records (only with the informed consent of the
patient) across multiple systems and stakeholders.
3. The Government will notify the use of Aadhaar for Healthcare under Section 4 of the Aadhaar
Act. Health schemes that mandate the use of Aadhaar will need to notify their schemes under
Section 7 of the Act.

2.3.11. Health ID in Government Programmes
1. Health ID will be offered as a service with a set of APIs. All government health programmes,
notified under applicable statutory provisions, are required to integrate with the service and
issue Health IDs as part of their programs. This will ensure that health information from visit to
public health facilities and those being captured across various health programs like RCH,
NIKSHAY, NCD, PMJAY will be included in the patients’ longitudinal health record. Obtaining a
Health ID will not mean the inclusion of all benefits under the schemes. Eligibility for a specific
scheme like PM-JAY will be verified and linked to the respective Health ID. All Government
health insurance schemes as well are expected to adopt and link the Health ID for benefits
linkage.

2.3.12. Health ID Linkage with Family members
1. The possibility of linking every Health ID with those of Health ID of holder’s family members,
including children, spouse, siblings, and parents will be explored within the legal framework.
The linkage would result in both IDs updating their relationship with each other. Linkages are
important in cases where delegated consent, organ donation or family medical history are
required. The guidance on legal and regulatory framework will be taken from MoHFW and
MeitY. The Health ID service will allow users to maintain, customize, delete, and update the
information and relationship status of those listed as their family members.

2.4. Health Registries
2.4.1. Health registries are the key building blocks of NDHM. They are the master data of all the entities
in the ecosystem, including doctors, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, and insurance
companies. These registries provide the basic information about these entities, ensure the
reliability of the health information generated as a System of Record (SoR) and increase healthcare
providers’ accountability.

2.4.2. Domain and Technology Owners for Health Registries
1. All Health registries will have public data—accessible via open APIs, and consented data—
detailed data available only on the informed consent of the underlying entity. Each Master
Registry will have a domain owner who will be responsible for defining the rules and policies
for how an entry gets added or modified in the Master Registry. The domain owner will also
take responsibility for ensuring that the key attributes of Registries (e.g., unique values,
completeness) are safeguarded.
2. Possible domain owners for key Registries include:
a. Doctors Registry: National Medical Council/MCI/CCIM
b. Insurers Registry: IRDAI
c. Pharmacy Registry: Pharmacy Council of India
d. Dental Doctors – Dental Council of India,
e. AYUSH Doctors – Relevant bodies within Ministry of AYUSH 3. The domain owners will have the primary responsibility of defining rules, policies, and data
related rights. The data will reside in a federated model, including at States and UTs, as defined
in NDHB.
4. As the technology owner of Registries, NDHM will be responsible for developing the
technology, managing the business requirements, and working with various stakeholders. It
will also ensure that design across registries, enable open APIs with security, share learnings
and serve as a single interaction point for users of the Registries.

2.4.3. Underlying Principles for Health Registries
1. Registries must be carefully designed with strong processes to ensure
a. Unique values: no duplicates
b. Complete values: no missing values (so ANY transaction can be described)
c. Self-Maintainability: entities can enrol and update information themselves
d. Non-Repudiability: Source of every attribute is visible; all changes are digitally signed
e. Layered access: Clear demarcation of public and private data; consent-based access for
private data
f. Extensible schema: Only minimal data in registries; allow ecosystem stakeholders
allowed to provide extended data
g. Open APIs: Public data in registries will be accessible via open APIs, with security. These
may also be published on the National Data Highway (NDH) to ensure easy access by
other digital platforms being implemented by various government departments;
h. Aligned Benefits: Ensure adoption for use cases that keep the data up-to-date;

2.4.4. Health Workforce Registry
1. The health workforce registry will cover doctors, nurses, paramedical staff, ASHAs and many
other health workforce cadre. NDHM will develop these registries in a phased manner starting
with the DigiDoctor platform, including AYUSH doctors.
2. To be successful, the Registries have to be useful to the entities listed on the Registry (e.g.,
doctors or hospitals) as well as be useful to other members of the ecosystem (e.g., patients or
insurers or policymakers). Utility to members of that Registry (or auto-utility) is critical as the
Registries need to be self-maintained and updated - something that is very hard to do for a
third party.

2.4.5. Healthcare Facility Registry
1. The healthcare facility registry will consist of one record and a unique identifier for each
healthcare facility in the country – hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, pharmacies etc. In the
phase 1, it is planned that NHA will implement the same for hospitals, AYUSH hospitals,
pharmacies, and labs.
2. Healthcare providers will experience ease of doing business as a verified entry in the registry
will enable them to apply online for several licenses like pollution clearance, AERB,
Drug/Pharmacy licenses, PNDT, medical waste management, etc. The registry will also enable
paperless empanelment to government schemes and private insurances as a standardized e-
facility record can be shared from the registry with consent. The registry will:
a. enable hospitals and diagnostic clinics participate in the digital health ecosystem;
b. allow healthcare facilities to be able to e-sign agreements, claim forms and payments
related documents;
c. maintain references to ROHINI, NIN and NHRR codes to ensure data linkage;
d. ensure that the contents are unique and there is only one entry for each unique facility.
The system will include methods to ensure duplicate entries cannot be created. The
registry will store the facility information; e. make available detailed facility information in standard machine-readable format; and
f. offer a set of APIs for applications to query, add, update, and verify the data present for
each provider.

2.5. Health Claims
2.5.1. As India moves towards UHC, a larger part of the population health costs will be covered by payers.
Efficient processing of health claims will thus become a key requirement in the health ecosystem.
NDHM will adopt the recommendation of the IRDAI NHA Joint Working Group on creating a
common IT infrastructure for the sector
1
. As part of the process, NDHM will
1. Define and adopt a standard e-Claim form that can be used for any health insurance claim -
Public (PMJAY, CGHS, etc) or Private (Retail / Group). The format of the e-Claim would be
derived from the FHIR-R4 standards used globally.
2. Create a Health Claims Platform (HCP) as a public good where health providers (e.g. hospitals,
labs, or primary care centres) submit their e-Claims and Payers (Insurers and TPAs) receive e-
claims via standard APIs. The HCP will provide a set of digital services that will ensure the
industry can move to common standards for claim processing.
3. Simplify the process of health provider empanelment and make it paperless by adopting a
standard e-facility form. The e-facility form will contain details of specialities, infrastructure,
and manpower available at a health facility. The Healthcare Facility Registry will store and share
e-facility forms with payers / TPAs on consent.
4. Ensure that the Health Claims Platform adheres to the set of design principles laid out in NDHM
including ensuring non-repudiability of claims sources and adjudication decisions, verifiability
and explain-ability of decisions, strong data privacy and encryption, consent-based data
sharing, reliance on open APIs with security by design and open standards, the use of
extensible/flexible machine readable schemas, and a financial model to encourage competition
and innovation by software providers.

2.6. Health Data Analytics
2.6.1. Every Health Information Provider is expected to generate aggregated data on the health
information that is being managed by them in the federated architecture.

2.6.2. Health Data Analytics platform will be developed that will subscribe to the aggregated data from
all HIPs, subject to compliance with the applicable policies and statutory provisions relating to
privacy and data protection. Data feeds are expected to be updated every day for any incremental
data from the previous data. Federated data lakes can be setup to manage this aggregated data
feed with States subscribing to LHDRs from within the State and the Centre subscribing to all LHDRs
in the country.

2.6.3. Advanced analytics tools including GIS visualizations capabilities will be available to generate a
wide variety of reports that would be useful to the policy makers, researchers, and public in
general. The tools would be made available to data analyst teams working in both Centre and
States. The data from the Analytics platform will also be made available to any interested
stakeholder under the NDHM Data Sharing Policy, following all relevant laws, rules, and regulations
to be evolved by MeitY and MoHFW. This will be consistent with NDSAP, PDP and Non-PDP
frameworks. Health Data Analytics will primarily use anonymized data.




2.7. Open Telemedicine and e-Pharmacy Network
2.7.1. NDHM will expand access to care services via a model enabling public and private sector Apps.
Unlike aggregators, this will enable a more inclusive framework of utilization for digital healthcare
platforms. The core principle will be that a centralized, Government created, owned, operated and
managed engine is created to standardize and institutionalize the core back-end for digital
healthcare services like telemedicine and e-Pharmacy, and open the front-end consumer apps –
which will decouple core engine and front end app-side innovations. This will have the following
benefits:
1. Core engine ownership and control with the Government for ensuring accountability, but at
the same time increased consumer choice through the availability of multiple consumer apps
2. Open availability to participate in the digital healthcare ecosystem, with choice of technological
platforms to all types of service providers (individual doctors, small-sized pharmacies etc.),
irrespective of their size and capacity
3. Fully interoperable allowing consumers to pay any healthcare service provider using any app
4. Increased innovation - many apps, many languages, many devices, self/assisted payment
options
5. Many market players due to open digital playground
This will also help implement the ideology of value-added services as defined in NDHB.

Chapter 3
3. Implementation of the Mission

3.1. Governance Structure and Framework
3.1.1. NDHM is a collaborative initiative between many ministries/departments. Given the inter-linkages
and comprehensiveness of the Mission, the following governance structure is proposed for
implementation of NDHM:









Governance Structure and Framework

3.1.2. As per the National Digital Health Blueprint, the mission will keep two separate arms – one for
regulation and other for implementation and operational management. These will work under a
defined governance framework, with roles and responsibilities at various levels of NDHM as
suggested below:

3.1.3. Mission Steering Group
1. The Mission Steering Group will be set up under the chairpersonship of Hon’ble Minister,
Health & Family Welfare – and will oversee and guide the Mission. It will have the following
members:
a. Ministers (MeitY, WCD, Social Justice & Empowerment, AYUSH)
b. Principal Scientific Advisor
c. Member Health (NITI Aayog)
d. Secretaries (H&FW, MeitY, Expenditure)
e. CEO (NHA)
f. Additional Secretary (Health)
g. Additional CEO/Mission Director NDHM
h. Other members (as needed, with permission of Chair)

3.1.4. Empowered Committee
1. The Empowered Committee will be set up under the chairpersonship of Secretary, Health and
Family Welfare. The Committee will take the necessary policy-level decisions, help the Mission
for coordination with different stakeholders and engagement with different Ministries &
Departments to ensure their participation in the NDHM. It will also supervise the roll-out of the
Mission to all parts of the country and population of various directories. It will have the
following members:
a. CEO (NITI Aayog)
b. Secretaries (WCD, MeitY, Social Justice & Empowerment, AYUSH, Expenditure, DHR)
c. CEO, NHA
d. DGHS
e. DG NIC
f. Joint Secretary (eHealth)
Mission Steering Group – Chaired by Hon’ble Minister, H&FW
Empowered Committee - Chaired by Secretary, Health

MoHFW and MeitY
Legal and Regulatory Framework
National Health Authority
Implementation of NDHM g. Additional CEO/Mission Director NDHM
h. Other members (as needed, with permission of Chair)

3.1.5. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
1. The MoHFW will provide overall supervision and guidance for the implementation of NDHM to
National Health Authority. In addition, the Ministry will also work towards the legal and
regulatory framework for NDHM and help NHA coordinate with States/UTs and the private
sector to ensure their participation in NDHM. The Ministry will also issue necessary directions
for adoption of NDHM by all health-related initiatives across the country.

3.1.6. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
1. MeitY will work with MoHFW for legal and regulatory framework for NDHM wherever
necessary and related to MeitY. In addition, MeitY will play a key role for providing guidance
on proper technological framework, leveraging digital services in proper fashion and emerging
technologies across the globe.

3.1.7. National Health Authority
1. NHA will lead the implementation of NDHM and coordinate with different
ministries/departments of the Government of India, State Governments, and private
sector/civil society organizations. An officer of the rank of Additional Secretary / Joint Secretary
will be deployed full-time as Mission Director of NDHM for overseeing the operations and
implementation.
2. NHA will have the following key responsibilities:
a. Administrative and technical leadership to the National Digital Health Mission
b. Propose policy support as required to the Mission Steering Group, Empowered
Committee and MoHFW
c. Development of models for self‐financing of National Digital Health Mission
d. Implementation of policies and decisions approved by the Mission Steering Group and
Empowered Committee
e. Coordination with MoHFW and the States/UTs
f. Engagement with all stakeholders including private sector and civil society
organizations, and develop strategic partnerships to achieve the objectives of NDHM
g. Resolution of technical and operational issues
h. Recruitment of resources from Government and private sector at competitive market
rates
i. Management of day-to-day operations of NDHM
j. Capacity building of various stakeholders for health informatics
Details of support needed from other ministries/organizations is placed as Annexure 2.

3.2. Phased Implementation Methodology
3.2.1. The Mission will follow the approach of ‘Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast’. This will enable a fast-
paced and agile implementation and provide learnings continually. The implementation of NDHM
will occur in 3 phases.

3.2.2. Phase 1 will comprise a pilot in the following areas with a total of 5 services (+2 services with
regulatory clearance)
1. Andaman & Nicobar Islands
2. Chandigarh
3. Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu
4. Lakshadweep 5. Ladakh
6. Puducherry
Phase 2 will be taking forward the pilot in additional States and expand the service bouquet.
3.2.3. Phase 3 will target nation-wide roll-out, operationalizing and converging with all health schemes
across India along with promotion, on-boarding, and acceptance of NDHM across the country.

3.2.4. Phase 1: Roll-out in Union Territories
1. As a part of the pilot, NDHM will get the technological platforms ready by August 15, 2020 and
build capacities of the stakeholders in the selected Union Territories to start using the
Federated Health ID, PHR and Registries as defined in the Chapter 2. The approach of
implementation will be staggered in nature. The details of the pilot with roles and
responsibilities are provided in Annexure 3.
a. With the development completion, field testing of the product at field level will be
initiated in select public and private institutions.
b. Initially, large-scale public institutions as well as major private healthcare service
providers in the specified UTs will be onboarded on the platforms.
c. Existing Artefacts and Building Blocks that are part of the IndEA framework will be
leveraged to the extent possible by ensuring that they conform and comply with the
core NDHM principles and guidelines.
d. Subsequently, expansion across the UTs will be initiated in a time-bound manner, i.e.
parallel emphasis will be on the following two core objectives in a time-bound manner:
i. Utilization of the platforms by all stakeholders and users, e.g. Health IDs being
generated for all willing individuals, new records being pushed to PHR mapped
to Health ID, registered doctors e-signing on web/mobile and generating e-
prescriptions, e-discharge summaries, other medical documents – and getting
the same pushed to the PHR of the individuals.
ii. This will include preparation and implementation of change management
strategy to ensure doctors e-sign and generate e-prescriptions; facilities can
provide e-discharge summaries and data is entered in Electronic health records.
Doctors and data entry operators will be trained to enable easy adoption of
digital services.
e. On-boarding of all willing healthcare service providers in the UTs and their capacity
building & empowerment for maximum usage of the NDHM components.
2. The above mentioned will be done in a time-bound fashion and will run in parallel to the Phase
2 of NDHM roll-out. MoHFW will help direct and monitor the UTs to fully comply and get
onboarded, with the same to be done on a mission-mode. With such support, it is envisaged
that NDHM will move towards 100% coverage target in these UTs within the FY 20-21.

3.2.5. Phase 2: Expansion – States & Services
1. In Phase 2 NDHM will expand work done in UTs to all States. In addition, it will expand the
service bouquet (details available in Annexure 3).
2. NDHM will adopt the following approach to roll-out the platforms in States:
a. NDHM will have a dedicated team to work on the on-boarding of States, and each State
will establish a Mission team for rolling out and management of NDHM at State level.
b. Senior-level consultation will be done with the States, with a request to State
Governments for a dedicated team set-up for integration, on-boarding and roll-out of
NDHM in the concerned State.
c. States will play a leadership role in the implementation of NDHM in their States and
NDHM will play a facilitatory role. d. On basis of the initial consultation, State-specific approach for roll-out will be prepared,
keeping in mind the context, needs, opportunities and constraints highlighted by the
State. This will include implementation strategy and integration/roll-out timeline in the
State.
e. The State(s) will be free to choose the set of healthcare institutions and schemes that
they intend to integrate in phased manner. However, the overall period for complete
on-boarding and 100% roll-out will be pre-defined.
f. Each State’s performance pertaining to on-boarding and usage will be monitored at the
level of Mission Steering Group.
g. The progress in implementing the Mission in a State will be included in the State Health
Index by NITI Aayog.
h. NDHM will also work extensively and help on State Mission Teams, for specialists
required for smooth implementation, team building, capacity building and enabling
quicker, more efficient, and effective roll-out of the Mission.
i. The Mission will also promote integration of all related State schemes (in addition to
the Centrally Sponsored Schemes).
j. Awards, accolades, and recognition systems will be set up at the national level for best-
performing stakeholders (State, District, District Collector, Healthcare Service
Providers, Doctors, Healthcare Professionals, Sarpanch, Village Level Entrepreneur,
ASHA etc.)
k. Dedicated teams will be put in place for private sector on-boarding
3. NDHM will implement 6 additional building blocks and components (with scope explained in
Chapter 2) as a part of Phase 2, which will be rolled-out in a similar manner as proposed above.
The details of these 6 components are explained further in this document. NDHM will seek to
integrate with systems like eHospital, eSanjeevani, eSushrut, DigiLocker (as the preferred
Health Locker framework) etc. to leverage the current strength of the public platforms.

3.2.6. Phase 3: Nation-wide Roll Out
1. Phase 3 of implementation will largely emphasize on the following:
a. Development, beta testing and Go-Live for all components of NDHM. This will be done
in an expedited fashion, to ensure time-bound implementation.
b. Nation-wide roll-out of all components across India. This will be done by marking
different zones across the country on basis of readiness of each State and promoting
the integration with NDHM. This will also include taking care of capacity building.

2. In summary, the following is the proposed way forward for NDHM in phases:
a. The verifications through MCI/NMC/CCIM/CCH/DCI via APIs will be technically ready in
Phase 1. It may be covered under Phase 1 implementation if access to APIs and
verification mechanisms are finalized by the concerned organizations.

3.3. Agile Implementation Methodology
3.3.1. The NDHM implementation will be done on principles of the Agile India Enterprise Architecture
(Agile IndEA) Framework. The following 7 core principles will be followed during implementation:
1. Identify, Define and Assess Value
2. Develop Just-Enough-Architecture (JEA), Just-In-Time (JIT)
3. Adopt MINIMALIST approach in ALL aspects and at ALL stages
4. Design a Federated Architectural Model
5. Axiomize API-based access and Integration
6. Evaluate and enhance individual experience continuously
7. Follow Agile procurement methods

3.4. Security and Privacy
3.4.1. The security architecture of NDHB will be based on the principle of “Zero Trust Architecture”.
Security is the protection of systems, information (data), resources and services from accidental
and deliberate threats to confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The Security Architecture
describes both measures that prevent or deter attackers from accessing a facility, resource, or
information stored on physical media and guidance on how to design structures to resist various
hostile acts.

3.4.2. To ensure an appropriate level of support of organizational mission and the proper implementation
of current and future information security requirements, NDHM will establish a formal information
security governance structure, and ensure that information security strategies are aligned with and
support NDHM objectives. NDHM will formulate an Information Security Policy which addresses
all related aspects.

3.4.3. In addition, for complete security and privacy orchestration, NDHM will bring in force the following
policies, taking forward the guiding principles in NDHB:
1. Health IDs (Health ID) Policy
2. Data Sharing Policy
3. Security Policy
4. Privacy Policy
5. Strategic Control Policy

3.5. Legal and Regulatory Requirement
3.5.1. The NDHM comprises 35 building blocks in totality. The IT systems envisaged will be designed and
the existing IT systems enhanced suitably to meet the requirements specified in the Personal Data
Protection Bill and Non-personal Data Framework, as well as the IT Act 2000 and the Aadhaar Act
2016, the rules and regulations notified thereunder and other relevant acts, rules and regulations.

3.5.2. Health ID
1. The process of generation of Health ID involves voluntary usage of AADHAAR. This will require
a notification under Section 4 of AADHAAR Act. In addition, notification under Section 7 of
AADHAAR Act will also be needed with respect to all Government financed health benefit
schemes.

3.5.3. Consent Manager
1. NDHM will ensure that informed consent of the individual is taken for collecting, storing, using,
and sharing of health data. Towards these, the standards shown in Table below will be used for
designing the systems and workflows required for consent management:

Purpose Recommended Standard
Consent Management ISO/TS 17975:2015 Health Informatics ‐ Principles and data
requirements for consent in the collection, Use or Disclosure
of personal health information
Consent Framework Electronic Consent Framework (Technology Specifications
v1.1) with its subsequent revision(s) published by MeitY.

2. The above standard will be implemented in a way consistent with the applicable laws such as
Information Technology Act 2000 (and its amendments), various directions, and rules of
National Medical Commission and its State counterparts regarding informed patient consent
and protecting patient privacy. NDHM will institutionalize an Informed Consent Policy to
standardize the processes related to consent management across the digital healthcare
ecosystem.

3.6. Stakeholders and Stakeholder Engagement
3.6.1. NDHM will actively garner inputs from all stakeholders during conceptualization, development and
roll-out. NDHM proposes a complex system that can be realized through high quality expertise
flowing into the architecture, design, and development phases, not merely within NDHM
organization but across all the stakeholders in a proactive and coordinated way. A stakeholder-
wise approach is placed as Annexure 4.

3.7. Procurement Strategy
3.7.1. The implementation of NDHM will be done in 3 phases, and the pilot phase is to be rolled out
before 15
th
August 2020. To achieve this, an agile procurement strategy is planned for the
implementation. For Phase 1, the procurement will be done in an expeditious manner, and is
divided as per the following structure:
1. Manpower/Resources for overall strategy, technical architecture, implementation, and roll-out
supervision will be internal to NHA.
2. For development and coding activities pertaining to the building blocks to be released as a part
of pilot, it is planned that:
a. the current internal IT strength of NHA, available for PM-JAY, will be utilized.
b. topping up the same, additional resources and services will be engaged through other
routes, such as through empanelled agencies under NICSI, a company under NIC, MeitY.
3. For phase 2 and 3, it is envisaged that selection of partners through open tender process will
be done for the following components:
a. Project Management Team for NDHM.
b. Software building blocks development, maintenance, and management for all software
components of NDHM.
c. IT Infrastructure and cloud services for NDHM.
d. Security components, SOC and POC for NDHM.
e. Internal infrastructure and office operations / management for NDHM.
4. The policy of MeitY on open standards and open source software will be adopted in all
procurements relating to NDHM implementation. Interoperability will be inherent to all the
building blocks.
3.8. Health Infrastructure
3.8.1. Privacy by design requires an Infrastructure layer to be established for management of the key
data services in a compliant manner. The Government Community Cloud or Virtual Private Cloud
infrastructure, as defined by MeitY, will be adopted to host data building blocks in Level 1
(National) and Level 2 (State). A hybrid cloud environment will be used for other levels and layers.

3.8.2. For the initial implementation, the compute, storage, memory, infrastructure, and networks
available with NHA on Government Community Cloud, being currently leveraged for PM-JAY, will
be expanded for the implementation of NDHM. However, a separate domain, VLAN and cluster
will be created for entire cloud infrastructure to be used for NDHM. Subsequently, procurement
of cloud services will be done, which is explained in detail in the procurement section.

3.8.3. Government servers/cloud shall be preferred for storage and hosting of applications in Phase I. If
not available, the current Government Community Cloud may be leveraged by NHA. It shall be
ensured, that there are no proprietary systems/tools being used by Government Community Cloud
that may restrain migration to Government servers, if planned later. There shall be provision of
conflict of interest and protection of PHR against unauthorised use if it is with a non-Government
entity.

3.8.4. Secure Health Network
NDHM will be built to work on public networks by default. Wherever access to sensitive or
aggregated data is involved, secure connectivity will be used. For specific applications like Tele‐
medicine, Tele‐radiology etc. that require strong data links to systems like PACS, low latency, high
bandwidth network systems will be specially designed.

3.8.5. Health‐Cloud (H‐Cloud)
The Health‐Cloud will be built on the MeitY initiative of Government Community Cloud (GCC) or
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with stronger security and privacy policies and infrastructure. Key data
hub management services of the Mission will be deployed on the H‐Cloud.

3.8.6. Security and Privacy Operations Centre (SOC)
All events on the Health‐Cloud and the Health Network will be under 24x7 security surveillance
ensuring every data byte is highly secure. This will be achieved through a Security Operations
Centre (SOC). NDHM will establish a Privacy Operations Centre (POC) to help drive compliance on
the privacy requirements, adherence to which is a must in the health sector. The POC will monitor
all access to private data, review informed consent artefacts, audit services for privacy compliance,
evangelize the privacy principles on which the building blocks of the Mission will be built and bring
trust and strategic control in the usage of health data in the ecosystem.

3.9. Resources and Support
3.9.1. To implement at the scale to which NDHM is envisaged to grow, having a dedicated team working
to achieve its vision and objectives is mission-critical. CEO, NHA will undertake the overall strategic
management and implementation related-decisions.

3.9.2. Team
1. It is planned, that a dedicated division in National Health Authority will be working on the
operationalization and roll-out of NDHM across the country, led by an officer of the rank of
AS/JS, Government of India in the capacity of Chief Operating Officer of the Mission. The
following teams will be working for the same:
a. Core Project Management Team i. Management team directly hired by NHA
ii. Consulting team(s)
b. Development and management teams in the following verticals
i. Administration and Finance(NHA current team may be leveraged)
ii. Digital Health and IT
iii. Stakeholder Coordination
iv. Security
c. NHA’s current teams working on PM-JAY will be leveraged wherever appropriate, for
expedited implementation of NDHM. This will ensure faster roll-out and convergence as
well as financial savings.
d. In addition, a total of 27 new positions will be created as per norms for the overall
implementation and management of NDHM. Of these, 19 positions will be utilized from the
initial period and the remaining 8 will be utilized in subsequent years of implementation,
as required according to the expansion of NDHM.
i. Of these 27 positions, the following 6 positions will be mandatorily filled by
Government employees only (CSS/ACC):Additional CEO and Mission Director
ii. Director (Stakeholder Coordination)
iii. Director (Administration & Finance)
iv. General Manager (Administration)
v. General Manager (Finance)
e. The remaining 21 positions will be filled through a mechanism similar to the flexi-pool
created by NITI Aayog, wherein people from Government, as well as private sector (at
competitive market rates), could be engaged.
f. The proposed organogram for National Digital Health Mission is placed as Annexure 5.

3.9.3. Budget
The envisaged budget requirement for the implementation done by National Health Authority will
be ₹ 144 Crores. Further component-wise break-up of the budget is placed as Annexure 6.

3.9.4. Way forward for NDHM
1. NDHM will initially be incubated at the National Health Authority. Subsequently, after learnings
of Phase 1, the way forward for NDHM may be evaluated and suitable model will be selected.
The following are probable options for operating NDHM:
a. Continuation at NHA: The Mission may continue to be operated by NHA, in which case
the separate Division created by NHA for implementation of the Mission during
incubation period may become permanent in nature. This will be independent from
other operations of NHA.
b. Another entity related to NHA: A new functionally and financially autonomous entity
under NHA may be created, to take care of overall operationalization and management
of NDHM. This will be similar to the NPCI, created to manage UPI. The Mission may be
transferred from an internal division of NHA to this newly created entity, along with the
core team created during the incubation period, with expansions / replacements as
required. NHA may continue acting as a guiding organization to this new entity.
c. Distinct entity not linked to NHA: NDHM may be transferred to a new entity as finalized
by the Mission Steering Group. Accordingly, either new teams may take-over of all
products and teams may be transferred, including overall operations, stakeholder
engagement, administration, and finance.


3.10. Risks
3.10.1. The following known risks are to be overcome during NDHM implementation and
operationalization:
1. Acceptance and usage of NDHM building blocks by other stakeholders, especially private sector
a. Striking the right balance between service orientation, financial models and not diluting the
public good nature
b. Clarity on the components and building blocks of NDHM and their timeline of
implementation
c. Keeping pace with technological advances and adopting the latest standards, e.g. those
related to changes in anonymization practices etc.
d. Cyber security and fraud control risks
e. Data migration between cloud servers, maintenance of data and core infrastructure

3.10.2. NDHM will follow the principles of ISO 31000 standard for risk management. The ISO 31000
standard provides a basis for managing risk within an organization. This standard comprises of a
set of principles, framework and process that may be followed to ensure appropriate risk
management within the organization.

3.11. Expected Outcomes
3.11.1. The various artefacts and deliverables of NDHM are designed and developed in such a manner as
to enable progress towards the following outcomes:
1. All individuals will be able to conveniently access their personal health records;
2. Leveraging longitudinal health record data, more people-centred care, reducing the occurrence
of repeated diagnostic tests unless warranted;
3. Individuals will be able to aggregate their health data in a single application (PHR),although
multiple agencies/ departments/ services providers are involved where the data is generated;
4. NDHM will assure the continuum of care for individuals, across primary, secondary, and tertiary
levels and across public and private service providers;
5. A framework for a Unified Communication Centre will be prepared to facilitate services and
outreach;
6. NDHM will support national portability for healthcare services;
7. Privacy of personal and health data, and informed consent‐based access of PHRs will be an
inviolable norm, with which all systems and stakeholders will comply;
8. NDHM will be aligned to the SDGs related to health;
9. NDHM will enable evidence‐based interventions in public health; and
10. Above all, the analytical capabilities of NDHM will support data‐driven decision-making and
policy analysis.

3.12. Conclusion
3.12.1. With increased ease of use, acceptance by the people and adaptation by service providers, digital
health interventions can accelerate progress towards UHC and improve population health
outcomes. By establishing a comprehensive, nationwide integrated digital health ecosystem,
NDHM will contribute significantly to achieving the goals of National Health Policy 2017 and the
SDGs related to health.

3.12.2. NDHM will mark a new beginning for the Indian digital healthcare ecosystem, enabling more
effective delivery of healthcare services and moving towards health to all.
Annexure 1

National Digital Health Mission: Building Blocks

The National Digital Health Blueprint recommends that a federated architecture be used instead of large
centralized systems for the management of health information. This is essential for enhancing the security and
privacy of personal and sensitive information of the patients while ensuring interoperability and technological
flexibility and independence.

The infrastructure layer of NDHM will create secure networks wherever access to sensitive health data is
involved, setup proactive Security and Privacy Operation centres to protect data and support patients on any
grievances in getting access to their data.
The data layer of NDHM will help create the master data across various aspects of health care including
identification of patients, doctors, health facilities, drugs, etc. It will also create the digital assets required to
support adoption of health standards.
The technology building blocks layer will provide useful digital services to the sector including health
information exchange, consent management, anonymization, tele-medicine, health data analytics etc.
Federated Architecture – NDHM
While the technology scope of NDHM is to design and create these 3 layers, educating and supporting all
stakeholders in the ecosystem to integrate with the APIs from these layers is the key part of this scope.
NDHM will work on a ‘Minimum Viable Architecture’ for the implementation of the Mission.


The above mentioned MVA will be the first set that the Mission will deliver. With the MVA, the Mission will get
its initial movement, and additional building blocks will be added to enhance the overall National Digital Health
Ecosystem.

As a part of the MVA, individual at the core will be able to access healthcare services through the Health mobile
application. All digital health services will be available to the individual through this app. It will be one reference
app, and with Value Added Services more such apps may be made by public/private sector leveraging the core
platforms owned by the Government.

The MVA is a minimal version of the overall architecture as explained in the previous section of this Annexure.
It still keeps the 3 verticals of National, State and Facility level interventions that will be done. At the national
level, the DigiDoctor, Health ID, Facility Directory, Data Exchange, and Consent Manager systems will be set up.
These will be working through the Health cloud. At the State level, the e-Hospital system should be available,
with HER repositories and federated registries being available. At facility level, the e-Health Card, PHR web
viewer and EMR web app will be available.

The above mentioned, as the base MVP, will enable the Digital Healthcare Ecosystem.
Annexure 2
National Digital Health Mission: Support needed

Ministry DigiDoctor Platform Health Infrastructure
Registry
Health ID Personal Health Record Tele Medicine e-Pharmacy
Ministry of Health
and Family Welfare
Populating Registry
• Integration of all
MoHFW & State
applications with
DigiDoctor platform
E.g.- e-Hospital
(NIC), e-Sushrut
(CDAC) and
eSanjeevani
• Sharing of details of
all IT systems related
to this topic

Creating Registry
• Full access to NHRR
/ NIN /NQAS data via
APIs to NHA

Populating Registry
• All hospital
empanelment under
any government
scheme must be
mandated to accept
standardized facility
data from the NDHM
registry.
• Nodal officer of
Health Ministry in
each state to be
appointed for NDHM
support. To ensure
all public health
facilities update
information
• Sharing of details of
all IT systems related
to this topic
Adoption of Health
ID
• Notification for use
of Aadhaar in
Health Sector under
Section 4 of
Aadhaar act
• Mandate all health
programs in the
country to adopt
Health ID and start
integrations
• New health
programs to follow
NDHM principles
and integrate with
NDHM components
• Sharing of details of
all IT systems
related to this topic

Populating and
expanding PHR
• Issue a guidance to all
health providers that
they must provide a
digital copy of health
records to patients via
the new national
standards.
• Mandate all programs
to implement the
Health Information
Provider (HIP)
Specification as part of
their software systems
• Sharing of details of all
IT systems related to
this topic

• Sharing of
details of all
IT systems
related to
this topic
• Overall
legal
framework

• Sharing of
details of all IT
systems related
to this topic
• Overall legal
framework
Ministry of
Electronics and
Information
Technology
• Sharing of details of
all IT systems related
to this topic

• Sharing of details of
all IT systems related
to this topic

• Sharing of details
of all IT systems
related to this topic

Creating PHR
• DigiLocker
application may be
modified to support
consent management
and viewing of Health
records in the app,
and be the preferred
choice under NDHM,
with other options
being available as
per choice of
individual.

• Sharing of
details of all
IT systems
related to
this topic

• Sharing of
details of all IT
systems related
to this topic
Ministry DigiDoctor Platform Health Infrastructure
Registry
Health ID Personal Health Record Tele Medicine e-Pharmacy
• Sharing of details of
all IT systems related
to this topic



Medical Council of
India/ National
Medical
Commission
Creating Registry
• MCI / NMC to provide
currently available
data to seed the
DigiDoctor platform
• MCI / NMC to
perform verification
for entries in the
NDHM DigiDoctor
platform

Populating Registry
• NMC to mandate all
doctors to get
registered in the
DigiDoctor platform
as prerequisite to
provide any services
• State Medical
Councils to be
requested to adopt
the DigiDoctor
platform
• Allow doctor photos
to be displayed as
part of their digital
profile
Onboarding of relevant
facilities on NDHM
platform

Ministry of Women
and Child
Development
Adoption of Health
ID
• Mandate all WCD
health programs
to adopt Health
ID and start
integrations
• New programs to
follow NDHM
principles and
Populating and
expanding PHR
• Mandate WCD
programs to
implement the Health
Information Provider
(HIP) Specification as
part of their software
systems
Ministry DigiDoctor Platform Health Infrastructure
Registry
Health ID Personal Health Record Tele Medicine e-Pharmacy
integrate with
NDHM
components

• New programs to
follow NDHM
principles and
integrate with NDHM
components



Insurance
Regulatory &
Development
Authority of India
Sharing of data
structure, protocols,
and APIs for ROHINI
system

Ministry of AYUSH -
CCIM
Creating Registry
• Ministry to provide
currently available
data to seed the
DigiDoctor platform
• Ministry to perform
verification for entries
in the NDHM
DigiDoctor platform

Populating Registry
• Ministry to mandate
all doctors to get
registered in the
DigiDoctor platform
as prerequisite to
provide any services
• States to be
requested to adopt
the DigiDoctor
platform
Allow doctor photos to
be displayed as part of
their digital profile
Onboarding of relevant
facilities on NDHM
platform

Dental Council of
India
Creating Registry
• DCI to provide
currently available
data to seed the
DigiDoctor platform
• DCI to perform
verification for entries
Onboarding of relevant
facilities on NDHM
platform
Ministry DigiDoctor Platform Health Infrastructure
Registry
Health ID Personal Health Record Tele Medicine e-Pharmacy
in the NDHM
DigiDoctor platform

Populating Registry
• DCI to mandate all
dentists to get
registered in the
DigiDoctor platform
as prerequisite to
provide any services
• State Dental Councils
to be requested to
adopt the DigiDoctor
platform
• Allow dentists photos
to be displayed as
part of their digital
profile
Ministry of Road,
Transport &
Highways
Integration with relevant
systems and
coordination with state
governments for
sharing data of
ambulances and other
vehicles related to
delivery of health
service

Ministry of Finance APIs for verification of
PAN, TAN and GSTIN
number
APIs for verification of
PAN, TAN and GSTIN
APIs for verification
of PAN number

Ministry of
Commerce - QCI
Creating Registry
• Full access to NABH/
NABL data via APIs
to NHA


Annexure 3

National Digital Health Mission: Pilot Services

1. The pilot in selected Union Territories will cover implementation of core digital health services for all
residents and healthcare ecosystem in the said UTs. The following services will be a part of the pilot
implementation:
a. All individuals will be able to get a Health ID (with option to get it verified with AADHAAR). There will not
be any financial expenditure by any individual for getting a Health ID.
b. All doctors will be able to enrol on the DigiDoctor platform.
c. All hospitals and labs will be able to enrol in the Health Infrastructure Registry.
d. Software in all Hospitals, Common Service Centres and all institutions successfully registered under
Health Infrastructure Registry will have facility to issue Health ID. Other institutions may also be
empanelled by NDHM to issue Health IDs.


e. Doctors will be able to access health records of an individual with requisite informed consent and push
new health data to the Personal Health Record linked to the concerned person’s Health ID.
f. Labs, Diagnostic Centres, Imaging Centres etc. will be able to push the reports directly to the individuals’
Personal Health Record.
To get the above implemented, multiple components as explained in Chapter 2 will be developed and rolled
out. Engagement of teams for these systems will be done as per the procurement strategy explained in the
strategy overview.

2. For each of the core components:
a. Engagement of additional resources will be done to top-up the currently available strength
b. Development of technology systems and deployment on Government Community Cloud/ Virtual Private
Cloud will be done, to make the product live for the pilot areas
c. A dedicated management team will be deployed for expedited roll-out before August 15, 2020.
d. A stakeholder engagement consultation will be planned with the concerned UTs for the pilot phase
readiness and expectation explanation to them.
e. Awareness generation about the platform will be done across the UTs.
f. Detailed IEC and capacity building exercise will be taken up at all levels, in joint consultation with the
concerned UT.
g. Training and capacity building of all stakeholders will be done by NDHM capacity building team

3. Federated Health ID
NHA will start a platform for creation of a Federated Health ID for the purpose as defined in previous chapter,
with the in-built option for Aadhaar authentication enabled Health ID and mapping with different
schemes/benefits.
a. Notification under Section 4 of AADHAAR Act will be taken up by MeitY and MoHFW
b. Notification under Section 7 of the AADHAAR Act will be done with respect to all benefits under
Government schemes, and the same will be taken up by MeitY and MoHFW
c. The UTs will organize registration drives for sharing required information and for issuance of Health ID
(Door-to-Door drives/ Booth drives)

4. DigiDoctor Platform
With the scope defined in the previous Chapter, the DigiDoctor platform will be built and made ready for
usage at the field level. 35

a. NDHM and UT Governments will issue necessary guidelines for all doctors to get registered on the
DigiDoctor platform
b. MCI/NMC and other authorities will issue necessary directions to State Medical Councils and other
concerned authorities for verification of all doctors who have applied on the DigiDoctor platform
c. Currently available data will be leveraged to the extent possible to save time and effort
d. No Personally Identifiable Data, including mobile numbers and email IDs, will be shared without the
informed consent of the individual/doctor.

5. Healthcare Facility Registry
Like other components, the Healthcare Facility Registry will be prepared and put in public domain as a part
of expedited action plan for implementation of NDHM Pilot Phase.
a. NDHM and UT Governments will issue necessary guidelines for all hospitals and labs to get registered on
the Healthcare Facility Registry system
b. NDHM will also set-up a first level verification team for all applications received
c. Government will issue necessary directions to the concerned officials for verification of all hospitals/labs
who have applied on the registry
d. Currently available data will be leveraged to the extent possible to save time and effort


6. Personal Health Records (PHR)
As a part of PHR system – a PHR viewer, a Consent Manager and PHR Gateway will be set up. This system
will enable the following:
a. Request to access specific health record of an individual on basis of her/his Health ID
b. Informed consent of the individual for giving rights to the requester to access the specific health record
c. Adding of records to the longitudinal Personal Health Record of the individual
d. APIs for already running systems to integrate with NDHM system
For expedited development of the system:
a. Engagement of additional resources will be done to top-up on currently available strength as per the
procurement strategy
b. Development of system and deployment on NHA GCC will be done, to make the product live for the pilot
areas to use the same
To ensure optimum utilization of the systems:
a. NDHM and UT Governments will issue necessary guidelines for all hospitals and labs to get either
integrated with NDHM APIs for PHR or evaluate usage to NDHM PHR systems
b. Training and capacity building of all stakeholders will be done by NDHM capacity building team

7. Digital Healthcare System for small facilities
a. To ensure maximum adoption of Health ID and Personal Health Records across small-sized health
facilities and institutions who don’t have an active technology system, NDHM will create a reference
application for small facilities, that will enable them to issue Health ID, access already created Personal
Health Records with informed consent of the individuals, generate prescriptions, reports, discharge
summaries etc. and share the same to the individuals’ Personal Health Records.
b. The system will be available directly from the Government to all facilities on no-cost basis to the
institutions who intend to use it, post authentications and authorization. It will be open source in nature
– and will enable continuum of care as an integral component of NDHM. NDHM will also encourage
private sector agencies to develop such software and get it certified by MeitY through empanelled
service providers under STQC as per guidelines issued by NDHM for use by health institutions.

8. Mobile App 36

As a part of the pilot, a mobile application will also be released. The app will enable the individuals to have
an access to the entire set of services on mobile – from creation of Health ID, access to reports and past
health documents, give informed consent to doctors to have an access to their health records to finally
getting new records added to their longitudinal PHR. The app will further be expanded to ensure complete
m-Governance for all components that will be added to the NDHM bouquet of services.

National Digital Health Mission: Core Services in Subsequent Phases

1. Health Claims Platform
The National Health Claims Platform will be developed and rolled out for various Government health claim
schemes such as PM-JAY, ESIS, for BoCWs and CAPF. The remaining public and private health insurance will
be brought on-board with support of MoHFW, other ministries and IRDAI/other bodies. All OPD and IPD
claims for schemes on-boarded with NDHM will be routed through the Health Claims Platform. All health
claims being processed through such centralized platform will be regularly monitored.

2. Telemedicine
The system as explained in previous chapter, will be made ready technically as per Telemedicine Practice
Guidelines 2020, Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics Regulation, 2002) and
other relevant laws, rules, and regulations. The system may be custom built, or a currently running product
may be consumed with 100% ownership and control of the platform with the Government. Once legal and
regulatory clearance is obtained, NDHM will roll-out the telemedicine system first as a pilot, and
subsequently be rolled out across the country. This will also require private sector participation to enable
choice of service delivery and enhanced access to interested individuals.

3. e-Pharmacy
Like telemedicine, e-Pharmacy system as well will be made ready technically. Once legal and regulatory
clearances are obtained, the platform will be made live in phased manner. For e-Pharmacy, all Jan Aushadhi
Kendras will be integrated to ensure maximum promotion of generic-medicines system. In addition, private
sector players of e-Pharmacy will have equal opportunity to join hands with the platform for delivery of
services. Private sector participation will be done before the launch of the e-Pharmacy service platform to
ensure their active participation.

4. Anonymizer as-a-service
The Anonymizer that will be built by NDHM will take data from the Health Locker and/or other health data
sets, will remove all personally identifiable information to protect privacy and will provide the anonymized
data to the Health Information User. The system will also anonymize both structured and un‐structured
data. This building block, once ready, will be shared in public domain for understanding and access. The
building block will be first integrated with all schemes / building blocks already on-board with NDHM. For all
new applications / systems, wherever deemed necessary by NDHM, the service will be by default integrated.

5. Health Analytics
As it is explained in Chapter 2, while the building block of health analytics can have very large scope in terms
of the number and nature of themes for analysis.
The following 6 initial set of themes with the corresponding benefits, will be taken up by NDHM for
establishing Health Analytics - quality of Care, quality of data, wellness, public health, fraud and abuse, and
policy support. The above mentioned will be dependent for a large extent on integration with other
Government schemes. Therefore, the Steering Committee will guide NDHM on the said subject, and
promote maximum schemes getting integrated with the system.
37

6. GIS/ Visualization
The need and importance of GIS/ Visualization is elaborately explained in Chapter 2. It will be taken forward
by NDHM in a multi-layered approach. The system will take data sets from the health analytics system and
produce outputs that can be consumed by the application layers. The GIS services will help in regional/state
level planning and monitoring of health services. As public good, it will be readily available to all (with due
identification, authentication, and authorization).
38

Annexure 4

National Digital Health Mission: Stakeholder Engagement Plan

NDHM will combine twin capabilities, namely, the architectural and design capabilities for creating the core
components and the coordinating abilities to enable and facilitate the implementation by all other stakeholders
in a concerted way. This will also help avoid duplicative efforts by multiple States/ organizations. Such common
services will be reusable, multi‐tenant, open source, and standards compliant.
The following stakeholder engagement strategy should be followed for different types of stakeholders:

1. Individuals
With individuals being the most important stakeholder and staying at the core of the entire NDHM ideology,
it is first and foremost extremely critical that they should have belief and engagement towards the initiative.
It will be ensured, that people-centric approach is followed for all applications and user experience /
feedback / end-user comfort will have enough weight in development and upgrading of the systems.

2. Government
Health is a State subject under the Constitution of India. Several of the proposed implementations need to
be accepted and implemented by the State/UT Governments. An appropriate structure will be designed for
a concerted action by the Central and State Governments for the successful implementation of NDHM. This
is particularly important in view of the need for a widespread adoption of health informatics standards and
of the building blocks of NDHM. Such a coordinated action is also required to ensure that the fundamental
premise of federated architecture adopted by NDHM succeeds at the ground level. An equally important
area needing close coordination between the Centre and the States is the security and data protection
obligations envisaged under NDHM.
Public healthcare schemes, initiatives and related ministries/departments will be playing an extremely
critical role in making NDHM a success. The Mission will provide building blocks and backbone for the entire
healthcare ecosystem for the country – however, it would give desirous outcomes when optimally leveraged
by the currently running and newly initiated schemes/programs. In this regard, regulatory as well as other
support will be provided by MoHFW, MeitY and other ministries. NDHM will also provide technical and
management support for integrating the legacy systems and data to concerned Government entities for all
integrations.

3. Private Ecosystem
In the Indian context, due to its size and diversity, the mammoth task of NDHM requires that a holistic,
comprehensive, and interoperable digital architecture be crafted and adopted by all the stakeholders,
including Private sector. In the context of the evolution of a digital ecosystem, the building blocks and
reusable frameworks or artefacts will be built in a manner that most stakeholder groups rely upon for
designing, developing, and delivering their services.
To ensure implementation with federated architecture, it will be important that private sector joins hands
with NHA for being HIPs, especially the hospitals and labs. To ensure proper functioning of the same,
guidelines and certification process for an organization to be eligible to be HIP will be established by NDHM
as a part of implementations. The certification will be done by MeitY through empanelled service providers
under STQC as per guidelines issued by NDHM. The Mission will enable and promote the development of a
host of innovative applications and apps by start‐ups and entrepreneurs to provide value‐added services to
the individuals and other stakeholders.

39

4. Leveraging Emerging Technologies
NDHM will leverage emerging technologies in an appropriate way at the earliest opportunity. The use of
Blockchain technology, especially its efficacy in addressing the issues of the health domain, will be explored.
There is a speedily growing innovation sector in India in the form of large number of start-ups, many of
which are focused on developing innovative solutions for the health sector.
It is essential that these creative talents are leveraged and tapped for the rapid growth of digital services in
health sector that will contribute to convenience, value‐added services, and cost-effectiveness.
To enable the same, the following will be done:
a. An Innovation Wing will be created within NDHM, with the responsibilities of
i. keeping abreast of the developments in the emerging technologies, with a special focus on their
efficacy in the health sector;
ii. undertaking PoCs in the deployment of emerging technologies and
iii. creating sandbox environments for entrepreneurs to try out these technologies.
b. A policy on Value‐Added Services (VAS) may be brought in allowing for
i. Identification and notification of areas where VAS would be possible and viable;
ii. registration of start-ups and developers who intend to develop VAS;
iii. publishing selected APIs to enable the registered developers to develop and provide VAS to the
stakeholders.
c. A special focus will be laid by NDHM to leverage the opportunities available to use AI in several different
areas, like for instance
i. empowerment of field functionaries to provide more effective extension services in the rural
areas, and
ii. developing user friendly and trustworthy clinical decision support systems.

In line with the Agile IndEA Framework, the NDHM would follow 5 levels of engagement, in increasing degree
of engagement – Inform, Consult, Involve, Collaborate and Empower. A Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP)
will be put in place that will describe the strategy and way forward for engaging and communicating with
stakeholders in an efficient appropriate manner, and ensuring that relevant information is provided to
stakeholders, platforms are built in due consultation, concerned stakeholders are involved and collaborating
for adoption and expansion of NDHM, and concerns raised by the stakeholders will be addressed in a timely
manner.
Annexure 5

National Digital Health Mission: Organogram

Annexure 6

National Digital Health Mission: Budget

Head NHA requirement
Digital ICT Systems Rs. 66 Crores
• Health Cloud – 12 Crores
• Storage – 5 Crores
• Bandwidth – 28 Crores
• SOC and NOC – 15 Crores
• Miscellaneous – 6 Crores
Application Development Rs. 20 Crores
Management Salaries Rs. 15 Crores
Software Licenses and associated IT Cost Rs. 12 Crores
Office Space Rs. 6 Crores
Change Management Rs. 15 Crores
Miscellaneous Rs. 10 Crores
Total Rs. 144 Crores