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Unified Health Interface to be launched this week: RS Sharma

The Centre’s ambitious Unified Health Interface (UHI) will be launched this week according to R.S. Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority (NHA).

During a discussion on the digital healthcare services in the country held at the 16th Digital India Summit, 2022, R.S. Sharma said, “We will launch UHI this week itself. We are putting it as a system and we are inviting the entire community to contribute to it. We hope that UHI will be as successful as UPI (Unified Payment Interface).” Sharma went on to add that the idea should not be confused with it being a wholesome solution, ‘rather it is the development of a framework on which all the existing solutions will continue to be worked on.’

On the challenges front, he said that digital health care services have some major issues like the digitalization of health records and the challenge of adoption which are yet to be addressed. UHI is the foundational layer of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM). It is an open and interoperable IT network through which people will use healthcare facilities through the online mode.

“Privacy is not a zero sum game. It is a typical myth that to have privacy you have to sacrifice some functionalities. We have worked in a federated architecture which means we don’t put the data in one place as it can become a single point of failure,” said Dr Sharma.

Google India MD and IAMAI Chairman Sanjay Gupta said, “We have to ensure privacy and safety of people on the internet. Winning the trust of a billion Indians is going to be critical and we can’t leave our doors open to bad actors and leave it to law enforcement to bring them to book.”

“Start-ups will play a pivotal role in achieving a trillion-dollar economy by 2025 from 250 billion dollars currently. Today, startups employ half a million people in India. That means, we need to focus on the right enablers for the growth — regulatory framework, right infrastructure, to ensure digital economy can grow equitably. Also, we need to ensure a safer internet,” he added.

UIDAI CEO Saurabh Garg said that the next leg of Aadhaar based innovations will be in areas like confidential computing, quantum computing-led cybersecurity infrastructure, faster biometric solutions and blockchain based products to make the authentication system more decentralised and secure.

The Aadhaar chief said that over 50 million Aadhaar authentications are taking place per day and over 400 million last-mile banking transactions are being done every month through Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS).

He reiterated that for individual residents Aadhaar authentication is free and will always remain free. Recently, UIDAI had slashed the price for authentication to Rs 3 from Rs 20 per instance to enable entities to leverage its infrastructure for providing ease of living to people through various services and benefits.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 27, 2021, announced the rollout of a Unified Health Interface (UHI) under the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM). The NDHM is aimed at transforming the health care system in India, to make it more accessible while ensuring privacy of personal health-related information of the users.

The Digital India Summit is being organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and supported by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India and NITI Aayog.
MB Bureau

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