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The National Health Authority (NHA) announces the extension of its Digital Health Incentives Scheme (DHIS) under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) till 31st December 2023. Under DHIS, incentives are provided to hospitals and diagnostic labs and to the providers of digital health solutions such as the Hospital/ Health Management Information System (HMIS) and Laboratory Management Information System (LMIS) for adopting and enabling transformative digitization under ABDM.
The DHIS was launched with effect from 1st January 2023 as part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. The scheme proved to be a significant catalyst in promoting the adoption of digital health technologies and practices in healthcare delivery across the country. Owing to its impact and response from healthcare providers and health tech companies, the scheme has been extended to allow more stakeholders to benefit from the financial incentives.
Talking about the purpose behind the extension of the incentive scheme, CEO NHA said – “The extension of this incentive scheme under ABDM reaffirms NHA’s commitment to fostering a digitally inclusive healthcare ecosystem and underscores the Government of India’s dedication to advancing accessible and efficient healthcare services across the nation. With initiatives like DHIS, we plan to recognize and encourage healthcare providers and enablers to collaborate and help build a digitally empowered healthcare ecosystem.”
Under the DHIS, the eligible health facilities and digital solutions companies shall be able to earn financial incentives of up to Rs. 4 crores based on the number of digital health records created and linked to ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) numbers of the patients. This incentive can be availed by the health facilities (hospitals, diagnostic labs) and Digital Solution Companies, registered with ABDM’s Health Facility Registry (HFR) and fulfilling the eligibility criterion specified under the scheme. It is anticipated that the DHIS advantages offered to the DSCs will contribute to cost reduction or will be transmitted further to the relevant healthcare facilities to pay their digitization costs, etc.
As on date, 1205 health facilities have registered under this scheme with 567 public and 638 private hospitals/ clinics/ diagnostic labs. Further, out of the 25 digital solution companies registered, 22 are from the private sector. Till June 2023, close to 120 health facilities and 7 health tech companies have received incentives totalling to Rs. 4.84 Cr. The incentive recipients include government hospitals like AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Raipur, AIIMS Bhopal, Lok Bandhu Rajnarayan Combined Hospital, Lucknow, KC General Hospital Bengaluru and private hospitals like KGMU, Lucknow, KIMS Hubbali Bengaluru among others. Diagnostic labs like Indira Path Labs in Delhi and Lucknow, Sahayog Pathology Laboratory Pune and Leo Clinical Lab Kannur and digital solution companies like NIC (Nextgen HMIS), CDAC (eSushrut), Driefcase, Ekacare (Orbi Health), Bajaj Finserv and Paytm are some of the top performing entities under DHIS.
Further, NHA is continuously monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the DHIS for ABDM adoption and make suitable changes about its continuation, modification, budget, or otherwise, as and when required. A dashboard for this has been created for this purpose: https://dashboard.abdm.gov.in/abdm/. More details about the incentive scheme are available at: https://abdm.gov.in/DHIS.
