The National Health Authority (NHA) has issued hardware guidelines across States and Union Territories for healthcare institutions like hospitals, clinics and health and wellness centres to promote digitisation.
The guidelines provide a basic framework to States/UTs for planning, assessment and procurement of the IT hardware (including IT specifications of various hardware equipment) to operate applications compliant with the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM).
Talking about the guidelines, Dr. R. S. Sharma, CEO, NHA said: “The first step towards Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission implementation is digitisation of hospitals. Several States and UTs expressed the need for some guidelines that gives them an overview of the IT infrastructure requirements based on the health facility size. The hardware guidelines issued by NHA will help the States/ UTs in assessing the requirement and facilitate the adoption of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission in their healthcare institutions.”
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission will simplify the processes and increase ease of living by connecting the digital health solutions of hospitals and other health facilities across the country with each other.
Digital facilities at hospitals
The digital ecosystem will also enable a host of other facilities like teleconsultation, paper-less health records, QR code based outpatient department registrations etc. The digitisation of health records will ensure that old medical records of patients cannot get lost and are accessible to them anytime anywhere. Ensuring necessary IT infrastructure and implementation of Hospital Information Management Systems across health facilities at the State/UT level will play a pivotal role in creation and exchange of digital health records across the ecosystem.
The guidelines on the IT hardware specifications to support this ecosystem is available at here. The document will help the States/ UTs in assessing the hardware requirements while planning and procurement of IT assets for healthcare institutions of all scales. The guidelines published by NHA is suggestive and recommendatory in nature. States/UTs and the health facilities have the flexibility to modify these guidelines based on local requirements and circumstances.
