The National Health Authority (NHA) on Friday released a consultation paper on the Unified Health Interface (UHI). UHI is intended to be an open, interoperable platform to connect all digital wellness options. The consultation paper offers an overview of the proposed style, scope and function of UHI. In view of the upcoming national rollout of National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), comments from the public are invited to make certain that UHI is made and created in a collaborative and consultative manner, NHA mentioned in a statement.
Through the UHI, NDHM aims to transform the way digital wellness services are rendered in India. Currently, patients and healthcare providers have to have to be on the similar application to avail and provide digital wellness services, respectively. It is envisioned that the open network produced by UHI will serve as the digital infrastructure for patients and healthcare providers to engage in the discovery, booking, payment and fulfillment of a wide variety of digital wellness services across applications, the statement mentioned.
The services consist of, but are not restricted to, teleconsultation and the discovery of pharmacies and hospitals. Over time, the services enabled by the platform will evolve with the industry ecosystem. UHI is made to be comparable to the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) ecosystem which has emerged for digital payments, it added.
Since the launch of the pilot of NDHM in August 2020 in six Union Territories, several rounds of consultations with diverse groups of stakeholders have been held for the different creating blocks to talk about the style and adoption.
Commenting on the consultation papers, Dr. R. S. Sharma, CEO, NHA, mentioned, “The NDHM is endeavoring to make digital public goods for the healthcare industry to make it more accessible, affordable and efficient. To facilitate this, we are taking a consultative approach to develop the National Digital Health Ecosystem. We have come up with the concept of Unified Health Interface (UHI), designed on similar lines as UPI (Unified Payment Interface), which has revolutionized digital payments and the financial sector. To enable inclusivity and widen the perspectives on the table, I urge all stakeholders to go through the shared consultation papers and provide us with their valuable feedback.”
NHA will also organise a public webinar on UHI to clarify the consultation paper on August 4, 2021 from 3 pm onwards. The hyperlinks will be shared on the NDHM web-site https://ndhm.gov.in/. NHA mentioned that the complete text of the consultation paper is obtainable for download on NDHM’s web-site. Comments and feedback can be uploaded on the similar hyperlink or can be emailed to [email protected] till Aug 23, 2021.