The Union Health Ministry, in collaboration with AIIMS, will come up with a National Death Registry.
The registry will contain data about deaths, including causes, from hospitals across the country.
“The objective is to have a database about cause of deaths in hospitals across India. This will help policy-makers have a better understanding of disease outbreaks so as to optimise resources and healthcare facilities in respective regions,” said AIIMS computerisation chairperson Deepak Agrawal.
AIIMS has already implemented the pilot version of the death registry with a coding system called the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED).
“Currently, health is a State subject. Thus, the entire death data is not transmitted to a central depository. This creates hurdles for policy-makers in framing health and disease related policies,” said a Health Ministry official. — PTI
