The National Health Authority announced its plan to promote health locker-type apps in an online meeting on February 10. These apps are supposed to allow citizens to view their respective health records that will be digitised by way of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. The meeting also saw a discussion on issues faced by third-party platforms integrated with the ABDM Sandbox. This sandbox is where private or government entities are able to test their regulatory and technical compliance with the ABDM, before passing assessment(s), and graduating to the ABDM live environment. The ABDM looks to digitise health data which is sensitive; thus, it may cause discrimination and psychological harm if the data is abused or leaked. Health repositories, which will essentially be private entities who get to store such data, are thus worth tracking insofar as their interaction with the ABDM. How will such apps link up with the ABDM? During the meeting, NHA's IT advisor Kiran Anandampillai outlined the following steps: A patient registers with a health facility by providing their phone number, name, date of birth, gender The health facility creates a new health record for that individual's account, based on those details. The facility then notifies the ABDM about the new record, providing the patient's phone number and the facility's Health Information Provider (HIP) ID, (that will be generated after enrollment in the Health Facility Registry) and linking it with an ABDM-approved repository software. The ABDM sends the user a message with a deep link to view their record…
