Centre Set To Repurpose Aarogya Setu, CoWIN Platforms For Broader Use — Details

Aarogya Setu has been relaunched as a health and wellness application while CoWIN has been extensively used to facilitate Covid-19 immunisation will now be used for universal immunisation programme

Representative Photo of CoWIN platform

Source : Getty Images

New Delhi: The Union government is repurposing Aarogya Setu and CoWIN platforms launched during the Covid pandemic period to effectively monitor and manage the disease with a view to addressing other public health concerns under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), said RS Sharma, chief executive of the National Health Authority on Sunday.

“Aarogya Setu is now being repurposed as India's health application. CoWIN, Covid-19 vaccination portal is being repurposed for national immunisation program & as a health management information system for small doctors,” said Sharma, according to news agency ANI

Launched as a contact-tracing app for Covid-19, Aarogya Setu has been relaunched as a health and wellness application. CoWIN has been extensively used in implementing Covid-19 immunisation and will now be used for India’s universal immunisation programme.

Noting that the authority has created a robust and interoperable infrastructure through the two pillars of Ayushman Bharat, Sharma said the applications are prepared to scale up for a population of 1.4 billion and be replicated across the world.

Launched on September 27 last year, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission has crossed the landmark of 10 million digitally linked health records, with over 2.7 million records linked in a day, according to data shared by the health authority. 

Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Sunday that earlier 1-1.5 lakh Ayushman cards were made daily, now 4-5 lakh are made daily, "my target is to make 10 lakh cards every day", news agency PTI reported. He said under the ABDM, about Rs 100 crore will be spent in every district to strengthen the health infrastructure of the country. 

"Stressed on making healthcare more affordable & accessible while addressing the august gathering. Also, called for taking AB PM Jan Arogya Yojana & Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission schemes to greater heights by working together in cooperation with States & private players," the minister tweeted.

Stressed on making healthcare more affordable & accessible while addressing the august gathering.

Also, called for taking AB PM Jan Arogya Yojana & Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission schemes to greater heights by working together in cooperation with States & private players. pic.twitter.com/ftWj3qaZi5

— Dr Mansukh Mandaviya (@mansukhmandviya) September 25, 2022

The government launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission to promote healthcare digitisation and to build an open, interoperable digital health ecosystem for the country. It intends to accomplish this by prescribing common health data standards and developing core modules such as the registry of health facilities, healthcare professionals, and other interoperability requirements so that various digital health systems can interact with one another by enabling seamless data sharing across various healthcare providers who may use different digital health systems.

The integration of various resources is the primary focus of digitisation of processes in healthcare institutions. As a result, the goal of ABDM is to bridge the gap between the various stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.

On August 15, 2020, the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) pilot project was launched in the six union territories of Ladakh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Andaman, and the Nicobar Islands. On September 27, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide rollout of this pilot project under the name "Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission."