New Delhi Government plans to reduce the growing number of quacks by opening a Health Professionals Registry (HPR) that will help patients verify their claims.
The National Register—one of three proposed—will have a robust mechanism for verification of health professionals from all systems of medicine, including nurses and paramedics.
According to the Indian Medical Association, there are about one million quacks, of whom 600,000 provide allopathic treatment and the rest practice traditional systems such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Tibb and Unani.
According to officials involved in the exercise, the procedures are designed to ensure that only professionals approved by authorized statutory bodies are onboard.
“The Healthcare Professional Registry will act as a single source of truth for all healthcare professionals in the ABDM (Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission) ecosystem,” Dr RS Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority said in an interview.
“Health professionals applying for enrollment under HPR are required to submit their certificate of registration, degree/diploma and proof of employment (in case of government employees). Once submitted, this information will be verified by the relevant council/governing body under which the health care professionals are registered. After successful verification of the information, the account will be activated,” Sharma said.
National Medical Commission (NMC), Dental Council of India (DCI), National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) and National Commission for Homeopathy (NCH) are some of the bodies that oversee enrollment along with various state authorities.
HPR currently has about 15,000 professionals, of whom 15.5% are from the private sector.
Two more registries under ABDM are Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) and Healthcare Facility Registry (HFR) to register beneficiaries (citizens, patients, individuals) for authorized health facilities.
“We plan to increase this significantly in the coming few months. Our team is working on integration with various medical councils and medical bodies to bring more registered doctors on board,” Sharma said.
“We have recently added a nurse module in HPR in which nurses providing health services in modern and traditional systems of medicine can also enroll. This is yet another step towards getting more verified physicians on the national platform. We have recently engaged healthcare professionals in mission mode at HPR. This process is designed to be very simple and fast. Also, minimal data is being collected.”
Doctors and health professionals will get many benefits from ABDM. Sharma said that HPR will become a one-stop solution for healthcare professionals to store and update information related to their professional qualifications and training.
Dr Girish Tyagi, Registrar, Delhi Medical Council (DMC) said, “Quackery is one of the biggest challenges in the Indian healthcare sector. Although setting up a health professional registry is a good step by the government, but the only way to eliminate quacks is to strengthen door-to-door health facilities so that poor people stop going to sham doctors and they can easily get closer. To get free treatment and medicines in government hospitals. cost.”