State of Indian Healthcare Pt. V: Bharat Health Stack and Healthcare for commons
Roughly 6 billion people or approximately 85% of the world's population lives in an Emerging Market country that lack streamlined reservation and appointment protocols.
This article is seventh in a series of articles titled State of Indian Healthcare where we will compile analytical reports to provide an overview of healthcare accessibility in India. The report utilises the available Indian government healthcare data to examine various aspects related to healthcare accessibility, including availability, affordability, and quality of healthcare services across different regions of the country. The findings indicate several challenges that need to be addressed to improve healthcare accessibility in India. If you want to get the final list of data sources and references for the analytics, it will be available at the end of the last article of this series.
Welcome to the final piece in this series of State of Indian Healthcare. If you have followed me so far, I commend your guts and patience to sift through my rants and insights on a niche topic. You may wonder how a software engineer became interested in Healthcare and public service?
Sometime around February 2020 during the onset of the Pandemic in India, I started reflecting upon the state of healthcare infrastructure and what solutions could help alleviate the problem of an exhausted healthcare in the year that would follow.
The Problem
Like my esteemed reader affected by the pandemic one way or the other, I was too. Over the next 2 years I would juggle my life between career and investing time studying healthcare in India and the world in general, around pandemic management and COVID19 specifically.
I found out almost 85% of the world's population is in the Emerging Market economies facing a similar problem yearly as the news streamed affected lives in these countries around pandemic.
Then again, healthcare infrastructure under stress was only a symptom visible during pandemic. Should the reader infer from global health stats, the street intuition makes sense for other global diseases as well. These are infectious or perennial and communicable flu-like.
Is it surprising that most of the tropical countries are also emerging economies?
But first, if you would like to access the full article in the series, a small caveat here. Subscribe to our newsletter and be updated on how we are tackling the challenges in healthcare accessibility with our non-profit service which has also been mainly open-source and runs on the support of many hearty volunteers from across the globe. For us, your support through sharing is a form of caring. When you read this article, it does not help us drive to a unicorn status or flashy media banterings. Instead, your comments and messages guide us on piecing the unknowns and parts that we missed while gathering data and helps us understand better the missing link between you and healthcare infrastructure and how we can better it through the commons health-tech platform.
Motivation
Case in point is simple. Millions around the globe face the same issue every year. Millions are provided in funding through government, charitable and private financing schemes including VC funding to ventures to address these issues.
Specifically in India, the government has made significant strides over the last decade which I have covered in my State of Healthcare in India series.
Similar initiatives are taking shape in other emerging and third world countries. I have written about UN Sustainable Development Goals 3.8 here:
Bharat Stack is an ambitious project by the Indian government aimed at creating a unified digital infrastructure to facilitate various services, including healthcare, finance, and more. Similar initiatives by other governments worldwide, particularly in healthcare, include:
Estonia: e-Estonia
e-Health: A robust digital health system that integrates all healthcare providers, patients, and health services.
EHR (Electronic Health Records): All citizens have a digital health record that can be accessed securely by healthcare providers.
e-Prescription: Digital prescriptions that are sent directly to pharmacies.
United Kingdom: NHS Digital
NHS App: Provides access to medical records, appointment booking, and prescription services.
GP Connect: Allows the secure sharing of patient information between different healthcare providers.
Summary Care Records: A centralized system for storing key health information of patients.
Singapore: National Electronic Health Record (NEHR)
NEHR: A centralized health information system that consolidates patient records from across the healthcare ecosystem.
HealthHub: A mobile app and web portal that provides access to personal health records, health tips, and appointment scheduling.
Australia: My Health Record
My Health Record: A national digital health record system that stores an individual's health information in one place.
National Digital Health Strategy: A comprehensive plan to enhance the delivery of healthcare through digital solutions.
Canada: Infoway
Canada Health Infoway: A national not-for-profit organization that promotes and accelerates the adoption of digital health solutions.
Connected Health Information: Projects to create interoperable health systems across provinces.
Denmark: Sundhed.dk
Sundhed.dk: A national health portal that provides access to personal health records, health information, and digital health services.
EHR Integration: Comprehensive integration of electronic health records across the healthcare system.
Finland: Kanta Services
Kanta: A national service for electronic health records, e-prescriptions, and other digital health services.
My Kanta Pages: An online service where citizens can access their health information and prescriptions.
United States: Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act
HITECH Act: Encourages the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) and meaningful use to improve healthcare quality.
Blue Button Initiative: Allows patients to download their health records and share them with healthcare providers.
Japan: Health and Medical Data Platform
Medical Information Network: A platform to share health and medical data across healthcare institutions.
My Number System: A national identification system that integrates healthcare services and social security.
Germany: Electronic Health Card (eGK)
eGK: An electronic health card that stores patient health data and provides secure access to health services.
Telematics Infrastructure: A national framework for secure data exchange between healthcare providers.
These initiatives aim to improve healthcare delivery, patient outcomes, and the efficiency of health services through the use of digital technologies and integrated systems, similar to the goals of Bharat Stack in India.
Next Steps
Many platforms and products have sprouted and those which existed have bolstered their presence in healthcare services in India, both by government and private players. This article is not a pitch. The evidence is already laid out that it is the need of the hour. I am hopeful and a big proponent of the technological advancements in the post-pandemic and AI-enabled world that will revolutionize such solutions.
There are 2 use cases to build upon Bharat Health Stack:
1. Solve unnecessary resource utilisation: Fix disproportionate allocation of resource constraints and inconsistent flow of patients.
2. Reduce wait times for dissatisfied patients: Provide reduced wait times for consultation and out-patient services for at-risk patients.
Many private players have shown bootstrapping resilience and with great funding opportunities in India in these times, such use cases are being solved for the common man. Which is why building solutions as a common man is greatly enabled by the ABDM health stack.
Why I think a public and open solution to these use cases makes sense:
Much of the government's ABDM components are built in the open
Many proponents of such causes have been building such systems such as Mohd. Jawwadul's Healthstack system in Bangladesh. Commendable effort.
By building out an opensource version, it makes sense to verify, audit and get feedback faster, build faster and better, aligned to the common's need.
And truly be transparent.
Watch out for my upcoming articles where I will share updates about how we are building out in the open.
A big shoutout to Rahul Sanghi @ for writing an in-depth and insightful piece “The Internet Country” which I highly recommend.