Health ministry to launch NHP to improve access to health services across India Suja Nair Shirodkar, Mumbai Thursday, June 20, 2013, 08:00 Hrs [IST] Giving a huge boost to the role of Information Technology (IT) in dealing with healthcare issues in the country, the union health ministry is expected to launch its coveted project, National Health Portal (NHP) in the country by October this year. Through this unique health portal, the health ministry aims to bridge the ever growing gap in the healthcare system through effective use of IT. The main objective of NHP is to improve the health literacy of the masses in India, improve access to health services across the nation, decrease the burden of disease by educating the people on the preventive aspects of disease. Dr Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari, project director of the Centre for Health Informatics of the National Health Portal, and the member-secretary, steering committee for the NHP, informed a high level meeting of the stakeholders held in Delhi recently that the ministry is expected to launch the project on October 1 this year. The meeting primarily focused on ways to successfully implement the NHP throughout the country to narrow down the demand and supply gap in healthcare services prevalent today. Expressing keen interest in adopting this novel service for better accessibility of healthcare facilities for the patients, top officials from the ministry impressed upon the road map envisioned for the same. However, Rajendra Pratap Gupta, chairman, HIMSS Asia Pacific India Chapter, cautioned that though the NHP has the potential to help in disseminating health information by putting forward greater health choices before the citizens, steps should be taken to ensure that this facility is accessible to all. Gupta insisted that the NHP should become a single point source of credible information for the common man and pointed out that since internet broad band is moving towards mobile broad band, NHP should be made mobile compatible for better accessibility. He stressed, “This project has the potential to re-shape the Indian healthcare system completely, provided the government takes all the measures to address the different dynamics of the Indian population. About 330 million people in the country live below the poverty line and about 300 million people are illiterate, besides only one per cent of the rural Indians have access to computers with internet. Thus we strongly believe that the NHP portal should aim to service these segments of the population through innovative ways.” Gupta informed that it was agreed upon by all that for better accessibility the portal needs to be integrated with mobile and apps developed along with data validation and authenticity of the information posted by contributors for making informed decision along with real time update of the portal. Interestingly, the meeting also stressed on the need for e-health policy in the light of development of the healthcare information technology along with integration of health information with Aadhar.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 15:58:24 +0000
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