A high level meeting chaired by Vaidya Rajesh Kotech Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH recently endorsed the operational integration of AYUSH Grid with the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM). AYUSH grid is the emerging IT backbone for AYUSH Sector.
This integration will be beneficial to the public for availing many options for their health needs. The integration will also accelerate mainstreaming the AYUSH disciplines of healthcare. This project was initiated by the Ministry of AYUSH in 2018 to create a comprehensive IT backbone for the this sector.
Significance
Digitalization of the AYUSH Sector will lead to its transformation in fields of health care delivery at all levels including the research, education, various health programmes and drug regulations.
This would also benefit for all stakeholders of AYUSH including citizens of the country .
It will thus help to achieve various national and global goals in healthcare.
The components of AYUSH Grid initiative covers all the verticals of the AYUSH Sector including
The Health Services
Education
Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes
AYUSH Research
Drug Licensing portal
Training Programs
Citizen Centric Services and
Media Outreach.
Initiatives Already Implemented
AYUSH Health Management Information System (AHMIS)–
It is originally based on THERAN which is an HMIS developed in-house by the Siddha Research Council, Chennai.
AHMIS has now been emerged into a robust, cloud-based Information System that is used by nearly 100 Clinical establishment of the AYUSH Ministry. The services of M/s Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore has recently been enlisted in order to rapidly enhance its scope.
The Ministry is planning to deploy AHMIS to AYUSH units outside the Central Government umbrella so that entire AYUSH Sector can use it efficiently.
AYUSH SANJIVANI mobile app and the YOGA LOCATOR mobile app-
The apps have served their objective of reaching out to a large audience in a short time. Currently, these applications have a combined down-load number of 6 lakhs.
These apps meet the urgent demands of the concerned Divisions of the Ministry.
Ministry also launched various crowd sourcing activities for gathering Covid-19 inputs as well as mobilizing AYUSH volunteers.Covid-19 dashboard was also set up for real time information.
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Customized IT course for AYUSH Professionals
Under the AYUSH Grid, a customized IT course for AYUSH Professionals was developed in collaboration with C-DAC, Pune. Nearly 200 AYSH professionals including a few from stake-holding institutions outside government were trained as part of this initiative. This has helped considerably to bridge the digital gap in AYUSH sector, and these professionals will play an important role in taking the digitalization of the sector forward.
The other successful projects implemented as part of AYUSH Grid include the Telemedicine program launched with C-DAC on 1st November 2019 as a pilot project in Siddha system. Since lock down, it is functional for Homoeopathy and Ayurveda systems also. Nearly 20,000 people have been served through this.
Implementation of AYUSH Next
AYUSH Next is being launched which is an ambitious project to support AYUSH Education. This has been developed and it will go online soon.
AYUSH Grid is developing through its constituent projects steadily.
The ministry expects that this will emerge as a comprehensive IT backbone which would be serving 8 lakh AYUSH physicians and 50 crore citizens within three years.
Officialy released by-Ministry of AYUSH
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