Set up the ‘National eHealth Authority’ to leverage telemedicine and mobile healthcare

By: Robin Keshaw and Abhishek Jain

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) had put the concept note on National eHealth Authority (NeHA) on March, 2015. It also had a consultation meeting on setting up of NeHA in April, 2016. According to this press release issued by the Government of India dated 2nd December 2016, the Ministry was still planning to set up the authority.

Further, dated 21.03.2018, the Ministry also placed the draft of “Digital Information Security, Act (DISHA)” in public domain for comments/views to ensure the setting up of NeHA. The purpose of the proposed act was to provide for electronic health data privacy, confidentiality’ security and standardization and provide for establishment of National Digital Health Authority and Health Information Exchanges and such other matters related and incidental thereto. 

However, since the legislation hasn’t been passed in the Parliament, NeHA continues to be a broken promise.

India’s move to notify the Electronic Health Records standards in 2013 was a progress towards digitisation of healthcare. Establishment of a statutory authority, NeHA, could have been a key step to leverage telemedicine and mobile healthcare