GUWAHATI: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in collaboration with the central and state authorities is working tirelessly toward revolutionizing the health sector by developing a digital highway for the stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem while ensuring accessibility, affordability, inclusivity, and interoperability.
Under this, IIT Guwahati is progressively participating in multiple initiatives to contribute in improving the health sector in the Northeast region.
Some recent activities include –
Regional Workshop of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission for Northeast
IIT Guwahati recently hosted the first Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) workshop with Northeastern States to understand the challenges faced by the states and support them to prepare a future roadmap. The State Mission Directors and their representatives from Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim participated in this workshop and showcased their way forward and support required from the National Health Authority, Govt. of India.
Proposed by the Mission Steering Group of ABDM, The National Health Authority is planning to conduct such regional workshops throughout the country to clarify various myths about ABDM and the challenges of ABDM adoption.
Conducting Training Program for Master Trainers of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission
In order to build the capacities of the state for enhanced adoption of ABDM, the National Health Authority organised a training of master trainers at the state level in collaboration with IIT Guwahati. Recently a batch of 34 participants from Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim participated in this program.
While addressing the participants and stakeholders, Prof Dr TG Sitharam, Director of IIT Guwahatiemphasized the role that bright budding engineers of IIT Guwahati can play in the ABDM mission.
He also encouraged wider collaboration between the NHA and newly established multidisciplinary schools of IIT Guwahati on Health Sciences and Technology and Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
The program was organized by the Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati.
During the event Kiran Gopal Vaska, Director, Information Technology, National Health Authority, Govt. of India said,“ABDM focuses on to shift from ‘illness to wellness’, ‘facility centric to patient-centric’ and ‘platform-centric to network-centric’.”
Dr Rajiv Kar from the Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology, IIT Guwahati provided an overview of the digital health scenario in India and world over.
Dr Daksha Parmar, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati, emphasized the importance of communication in healthcare training.
The Components of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission include:
- Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) Number
- Healthcare Professional Registry (HPR)
- Health Facility Registry (HFR)
- Unified Health Interface (UHI)
- ABHA Mobile App (PHR)
Discussion and briefing sessions on the above-mentioned components and its benefits were conducted by NHA during the training program at IIT Guwahati.
Along with this, discussions on how to address various challenges being faced by the stakeholders and workers while implementing ABDM were also discussed.
These sessions motivated the participants towards the implementations of ABDM with all technical knowledge and effective ways of communication.
This program gave them a sense of confidence and belief in the ABDM system and a change in country’s healthcare system it can bring.
The training program concluded with an address by Dr Akshay Jain, Joint Director, State Coordination, ABDM and certificate distribution to the participants.