Cabinet gives 'financial nod' to health card proj

New Delhi: The Delhi Cabinet on Tuesday gave financial nod to the health card

project of the city government which will be part of an integrated Health Information Management System (HIMS), officials said.

As part of the HIMS project, health cards will be assigned to each citizen and they will be a digital repository of medical information. Doctors will be able to see patients' medical history using the card and the patients will be able to take appointments from home.

As per the project, those aged between 1 to 18 years would be issued a card linked to their parents' health cards. Cards of all newborn children (up to 1 year of age) would be linked to their mother's health card, the officials said.

The Delhi Cabinet in its meeting at the Delhi Secretariat, chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, gave financial nod to the health card project, the Chief Minister's Office said in a statement.

However, the statement did not specify the exact budget approved for the project. People will get e-health cards soon, it said. The citizens of Delhi along with their family members would be able to pre-register themselves for issuance of a temporary e-health card for a duration of one year. This will be converted to a permanent card once the citizens' details have been validated through surveys and all the required data is updated subsequently, the statement said.

These health cards will be based on secured QR-codes or cryptographs and similar technology to contain the encrypted information about the unique identity, demographic details and key clinical information on individual citizens. Each individual citizen will be assigned a unique health ID, as per guidelines defined under the National Digital Health Mission (NHDM), the statement said.

Early February, Kejriwal had directed officials to finalise the HIMS project by the middle of this year and start distribution of e-health cards at the earliest.

The health cards constitute a very crucial part of the HIMS, a cloud-based health management system.