A keynote address on “Aarogya Setu App and Healthcare Technology by NIC” was delivered by Dr. Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC at the Glocal India Healthcare Virtual Conclave held on 27th August 2020  organized by APAC Digital News Network.

In the keynote address, Dr. Verma recalled the MEDLARS services provided by NIC in the 1980s that facilitated access to scientific journals, information, and much more to the doctors and healthcare researchers at that time.

Talking about several initiatives taken by NIC in the healthcare sector, she explained about the eHospital, a cloud-based hospital management system used by over 400 hospitals across India. During the COVID-19 pandemic telemedicine and teleconsultations has become a necessity. Many hospitals have initiated teleconsultation using the eHospital platform.

With more than 15 crore users, Aarogya Setu has become the largest public contact tracing app across the world.  Using Bluetooth and GPS technology, it builds a social graph of people you come in contact with. Dr. Verma elaborated about the upcoming features of the Aarogya Setu app like sharing of status using QR code. This feature would enable small businesses and offices to keep track of the health status of their employees. It also has an IVRS component to support people using no-smart phones.

The RT-PCR App developed by NIC facilitates the technicians to collect the samples as per the guidelines of ICMR. In less than a minute time, the data is uploaded to ICMR Lab and ICMR portal. Over 2 crore samples have been collected as on date using this app.

Over 20 States have used the ePass application framework provided by ServicePlus, a low-code, no-code platform of NIC. The framework facilitated State/UT governments in implementing the ePass application quickly during the pandemic.

DG, NIC informed that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a tough testing time as well as a great learning moment also. Looking into the necessity, NIC is planning to develop a telemedicine platform to enable healthcare in such situations. NIC is also working to support the National Health Mission in its various initiatives. A National API Exchange is also being developed by NIC to facilitate easy and secure exchange of data among the various stakeholders. She also emphasized on the need for encouraging the use of more and more data analytics in healthcare.