Aadhaar may be used to create health record

Aadhaar card could be used to create a national portable health record system that can help monitor epidemics and drug efficacy, UIADI chairman Nandan Nilekani said on Friday.

He was speaking at ‘Indo-US Startup Accelerator Workshop’ jointly organised by FICCI, Department of Science and Technology and the US Embassy.

“A possible innovation in the health sector is creation of digitalised health records of individuals, which could be linked to Aadhaar card,” said Nilekani.

“You may travel, somebody may have an ailment in one town and they may go to a doctor in another town, they may switch their service providers. So basically you need a way to have mobility to have electronic health information,” he added.

“That is something we think that can be done using the Aadhaar card because you can just link your electronic health record to your ID and then keep that on the card and wherever you go you can authorise that particular party (who is building the record system) to use your health record for the purpose of medical care or diagnosis," he said.

He said that the system could be beneficial and effective because of the volume of an individual's health history.

“Healthcare reform is very difficult to do because of massive and complex system. You need to keep people's healthcare record electronically because health records could be voluminous because you have X-Rays, MRIs and ultrasounds to be stored and you have to do digitally,” Nilekani said.