India launched the prestigious Unique Identification Project (Aadhar) on the 28th of January 2009. After 7 years, around 95,00,00,000 have Aadhar Card. Even though having Aadhar is not mandatory, Government has been increasingly launching initiatives which are linked to the Aadhar Card and hence the number of signup’s have been increasing.
How can we use Aadhar Card to improve Healthcare?
To begin with, tracking Health records. India’s Healthcare system is a three tier architecture – Primary Health Center (PHC), Secondary Care and Tertiary Care. The PHC is the first point of care for the Government and according to the design, there should be 1 PHC for every 5,000 population in the rural areas and 1 PHC for every 10,000 population in the urban center.
With the Aadhar number, personal health records can be created for every individual at the PHC level. In the urban areas, Aadhar number can be utilized to register individuals at Private hospitals/clinics or at the PHC. Alternatively, we can have a centralized website which can create Health records for Individuals and they can signup using their Aadhar Number.
When there is a birth, before issuing the Birth Certificate, a Medical record should be created and all the vaccination information should be pushed through electronically. Today, this is done manually through medical cards which carry important vaccination information for the child.
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