Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has currently generated 16.4 Cr ABHA numbers. Aarogya Setu will help amplify this further
The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) announced integration with Aarogya Setu, the hugely popular health app by Government of India. This integration takes the benefits of 14-digit unique ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) number to the Aarogya Setu user base and beyond.
Under the ABDM, a user can generate their unique ABHA number. They can use the ABHA number to link their existing and new medical records including doctor prescriptions, lab reports, hospital records etc. and also share these records with registered health professionals and health service providers and also access other digital health services whilst maintaining a common pool of medical history.
Elaborating on the integration, Dr R S Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority (NHA) said: “Aarogya Setu has played a pivotal role amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in a wide usage of the mobile application. As vaccination helps us fight this pandemic, it was essential to repurpose this widely used digital public good. With the integration of Aarogya Setu with ABDM, we will now be able to make the benefits of ABDM available to the users of Aarogya Setu and enable them to join the digital health ecosystem, with their due consent. Creation of ABHA is the start, and we would soon roll out the functionality to view your digital health records as well.”
Aarogya Setu app has a huge active user base and is already being used for COVID-19 related contact tracing to check risk factor, ICMR-guidelines based self-assessment, COVID-19 vaccine booking, certificate download and status check, generating e-Pass, search for ICMR-approved labs providing COVID-19 testing facilities, helpline contacts and other COVID-19 statistics & updates. This integration with ABDM will add another feature of generating ABHA number for the app users.
Regarding the integration, . Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said: “With ABHA, Aarogya Setu has enabled an important consent based option for the citizens which will help them access their personal health record and useful services from the national digital health system.”
Generating ABHA number is fairly simple. The user can generate their ABHA number using their Aadhaar number and some basic demographic details like Name, Year of Birth (or Date of Birth), Gender and address (auto-populated once the user authenticates via Aadhaar OTP). If the user does not wish to use their Aadhaar, they can use their Driving License or Mobile Number to generate the ABHA number. Users can generate their ABHA number from: https://abdm.gov.in/ or the ABHA App (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.ndhm.phr) or from other apps integrated with ABDM.
More information on ABDM available here: https://abdm.gov.in/
