The National Health Authority (NHA) on Tuesday announced that funds will be allocated to States and Union Territories for implementation of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) based on their performance in registering healthcare professionals and health facilities.
The funds will be allocated on their performance in recording data in the Health Facility Registry (HFR) and Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR), which it said, were the key pillars of ABDM.
This performance-based fund allocation will help in structured implementation of ABDM at the state and UT level, with verified entries strengthening the key national registries being built under the scheme, an NHA statement said.
According to NHA's earlier guidelines, `500 crores had been demarcated for setting up of ABDM offices at state and UT level over a period of five years (FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26). Twenty percent of these funds, — `100 crores were earmarked as incentive-based funds, the statement said.
Taking this thought further, the NHA decided to extend the current fund allocation based on the performance of respective states and UTs in terms of number of entities (healthcare professionals like doctors, nurses etc and health facilities like hospitals, clinics) that they register and verify within a stipulated period, the statement said.
The population of Health Facility Registry (HFR) and Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) is crucial to achieve the intended objective of ABDM.
In accordance, the NHA has defined parameters for fund allocation as `100 for each verified entries in HFR and HPR till December 31, 2022, `50 for each verified entries in HFR and HPR between January 1, 2023 till March 31, 2023, the statement said.
No funds will be allocated for entries verified in HFR and HPR after March 31, 2023 and states and UTs are at liberty to use these funds for deploying human resources full time or part time for ABDM, the statement said.
Also, to further promote the digital health ecosystem, the NHA will recognise the best performing states, union territories, districts, health facilities and integrators under its flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission.
Since its nationwide launch in September 2021, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has achieved significant growth with over 23 crore ABHA numbers (earlier known as Health ID), 1.14 Lakh health facilities registered in the Health Facility Registry (HFR), an official from the NHA said.
Besides, 33 thousand healthcare professionals have been registered under the Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR), 6.6 lakh ABHA apps have been downloaded and 3.4 Lakh health records have been linked to ABHA of individuals, he said.
"With more individuals, healthcare professionals like doctors, nurses, paramedics and health facilities like hospitals, nursing homes, wellness centres, clinics, diagnostic labs, pharmacies joining ABDM, digitisation of health records at their point of creation is now possible," the official said.