Digital India programme: Govt mulls setting up eHealth Authority

India is mulling over setting up a National eHealth Authority (NeHA) for standardisation, storage and exchange of electronic health records of patients as part of the government’s Digital India programme. The authority, to be set up by an Act of Parliament will work on the integration of multiple health IT systems in a way that ensures security, confidentiality and privacy of patient data.
A centralised electronic health record repository of all citizens which is the ultimate goal of the authority will ensure that the health history and status of all patients would always be available to all health institutions. Such a move would mean the present practice of patients undergoing fresh tests every time they switch doctors would be discontinued and expenditure reduced. This would also expedite diagnosis and treatment. It would also be a repository of full health information that can be processed to generate epidemiological data on a massive scale.
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