By Eashaan Agrawal
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On the 15th
of August, Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi announced the launch of the
National Digital Health Mission. Along with it was announced the introduction
of the Health Card or Health ID a card on the lines of Aadhaar. According to
the Prime Minister, the card would revolutionize the healthcare industry and
will prove to be a game-changer.
What is a Health Card?
Health Card
is basically a unique ID card that will contain all the relevant medical
information of an individual. The Health Card as envisaged can be used by the
patient to share his medical records with the doctor for the purpose of
diagnosis and treatment. Further, with time the health ID can be used to order
medicines from e-pharmacies and other diagnostic laboratories for increasing
efficiency and ease of access.
An
important factor to note is that the whole process for registering for the
Health Card is voluntary and no one can be forced to register for it. This
model is further supplemented by the Digi Doctor feature as planned under
National Digital Health Mission. Under this model, doctors will have the option
to register themselves on an online portal and provide their details. These
doctors will be allotted e-signatures which can then be used for signing
prescriptions for the purpose of e-pharmacies.
What are the issues at stake?
The
Health Card will be a great step in reducing pilferage and giving targeted
healthcare benefits to the citizens. It will also enable transparency and avoid
frauds on the parts of the doctor, for instance prescribing tests that are not
really required etc. However, there are still some issues in the Health Card
which needs to be looked at for ensuring better compliance.
Privacy
is one of the most obvious and important issues. Health IDs will often have
sensitive information about an individual and in such a scenario it is exigent
that the data of the individual is safe and secure. This particularly becomes
more important considering that India does not have a law on data protection as
of now. According to the National Digital Health Mission’s document[1],
the health records of the individual will be locally stored and can be made
accessible only after the consent of the patient. However, there are certain
shortcomings.
There is an
absence of any way where a person can exercise his right to be forgotten.
Further, the document is silent on how the consent that is given can be revoked,
and for how long will the data be stored before being erased. Another ancillary
issue is there is how the data can be used and what are the consequences in
case of violation of the authorisation given by the patient. For example, if a patient
allows his medical records to be accessed by his doctor for a particular
operation, whether the said data can be used in research and development, and
in case not, then what the consequences are for the violation of the same. These
issues need to be resolved so that the citizens can make an informed decision.
Further,
the Health Card needs to gain widespread acceptance before it actually becomes
viable. This issue was particularly noted in the Ayushman Bharat scheme where private
hospitals decided to stay away from the scheme because of financial
unviability. The participation of private hospitals and doctors will thus
become crucial in determining the success of Health Card as actually a way of
digitising the health care structure.[2]
The issue
of accessibility is also an important factor. The majority of Indians are not
aware of the implications of the Health Card and further are ignorant about the
privacy concerns associated with it. This problem gets even more visible in
rural parts of India, where often both the doctors and patients are unaware of
such issues. In such a situation is it really practical to introduce the Health
Card, where the burden is virtually on the patient to protect his privacy from
others?
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Eashaan is a 2nd year law student at National Law University Delhi. A voracious reader, he loves to travel to new places and experience the culture of different places. His interests include Constitutional Law, Contracts and Law of Crimes.
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