For A 'Swasth' Bharat: All 695 Railway Hospitals Integrated With Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

In a major step for implementation of "Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission" (ABDM), all the 695 hospitals and health centres of Indian Railways across the country have been successfully integrated with the ABDM.

The move will not only benefit around 80 lakh Railway employees and Railway pensioners and their family members in accessing healthcare facilities of other hospitals integrated with ABDM additionally, but also enable the general public to draw benefits of healthcare facilities available in Railway hospitals and health centres in a seamlessly digital manner.

If Railway patients are going outside the Railway Health System to some other hospitals integrated with ABDM for specialised treatment anywhere in the country, then, with the help of this integrated system, the exchange of medical records will be facilitated digitally, expeditiously and seamlessly, making things easier, faster, hassle-free and efficient for beneficiaries or patients.

This significant job of integration of the Railway health system with ABDM has been executed by RailTel, a Railway PSU.

It has been accomplished in collaboration with the National Health Authority (NHA), the apex body responsible for implementing “Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)” to create a National Digital Health Eco-system.

ABDM aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country. It will bridge the existing gap amongst different stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem through digital highways.

Earlier, in a mega exercise, RailTel had implemented a Web-Based, Multi-Module, Feature-Rich, Sophisticated, Software System Called “Hospital Management Information System (HMIS)” in all the 695 hospitals and health units of Indian Railways across the country.

It has made the railway health system more transparent, effective, efficient, accountable and patient-friendly. This HMIS system of Railways was then also made fully compliant with the ABDM system.

As a next step, RailTel and NHA have now successfully integrated these two systems for the benefit of patients and health administration. Under Railway HMIS system, one mobile app namely, “HMIS Patient Mobile App” has also been created for ensuring easy information access to patients related to their OPD Registrations, Doctor Prescriptions, Lab Reports, Self-Registration etc.

With this, the patients have been empowered to get easy access to all their health records anytime they need them.

RailTel has collected the details of all Health Facilities (HFR) and Healthcare Professionals IDs (HPR-IDs) from Railway users and coordinated with NHA team for backend assignment of facilities with facility managers.

Under the integration of ABDM and Railway HMIS, all the four components of ABDM have been implemented namely, ABDM Health ID (ABHA: Ayushman Bharat Health Account) of beneficiary, Healthcare Professional Registry (HPR), Health Facility Registry (HFR) and Personal Health Records (PHR).

Railways HMIS has become one of the first solution to fully comply with all milestones of ABDM and completely integrate with ABDM.

Railways HMIS Mobile App is provided with the facility for Railway Medical Beneficiaries to generate ABDM Health ID. Railway HMIS users will additionally download another app called “ABDM Personal Health Record Mobile App” to take advantage of ABDM Ecosystem.

The Railways HMIS solution already has the functionalities to link the medical records of beneficiaries to ABHA Health ID.

The linked records can then be viewed in ABDM Personal Health Record Mobile App and can also be shared with different hospitals as per the requirement.

However, the personal records can be shared strictly only with the consent of the concerned patient. RailTel has given extensive demonstrations and training to Railway users about ABDM since last one month to ensure smooth integration of the two systems.

Talking about it, RailTel CMD Puneet Chawla said, "RailTel is committed to playing a major role in the digital transformation activities taking place in the country and in Digital India Initiative of the government. The company recently completed the implementation of “Hospital Management Information System (HMIS)” in all the 695 Railway Hospitals and Health Centres across the country, which has proved to be a gamechanger for the Railway’s health system. Now, integration of railway HMIS with ABDM is another milestone which will help beneficiaries reap the benefits of ABDM ecosystem in a seamless digital manner. Such integration of hospitals with ABDM will gradually ensure the reach of good healthcare facilities to every citizen in the country and provide them with the best digital healthcare.