The Unified Health Interface (UHI) under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is soon going to be made available for the public across the country through the Aarogya Setu application, said Kiran Gopal Vaska, Director, National Health Authority.
In an interaction with The Hindu in Vijayawada on Sunday, Mr. Kiran Gopal said that the Unified Health Interface, which brings together people and healthcare facilities and professionals from across all sectors and platforms, had been in the sandbox and is now ready.
“The reference applications for the users, healthcare facilities and professionals are also ready. In a week or 10 days, UHI will be offered to the public through the Aarogya Setu app. An update for Aarogya Setu will be rolled out for the same,” Mr. Kiran Gopal said. “We aim to put all the stakeholders together on UHI by the end of November,” he added.
Explaining the UHI further, Mr. Kiran Gopal said it comprised three types of stakeholders: individuals seeking healthcare services, healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals.
"Any healthcare facility which has ABDM-enabled software will be on UHI. This includes the Online Registration System (ORS) of AIIMS and the existing applications such as Practo. Aarogya Setu users can still consult a doctor on Practo and other such applications through the UHI without having to use an external app," he said and added that UHI would increase the discoverability and delivery of health services manifold.
Consultation process
Mr. Vaska said that the Aarogya Setu users had to give their health ID (Ayushman Bharat Health Account ID) and healthcare professionals would be able to examine their medical history through the UHI during consultations. “We have asked the private hospitals to create health IDs for their patients along with the internal patient IDs,” he said.
The basic idea of UHI was to bring together all the healthcare facilities and professionals to create an eco-system that would make things easy for everyone. Many doctors and stakeholders were suggesting making UHI mandatory for medical facilities and professionals, he said referring to a brainstorming session held in Bengaluru recently. The UHI would be voluntary for citizens, he said.
Through UHI, the government would provide free software and more HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces) such as the Cowin vaccine appointment HMI to the private sector in future, he said.
Through UHI citizens could discover, consult and pay for the healthcare services offered by participating facilities and professionals online.
