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The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare recently launched the Unified Health Interface (UHI), a key digital platform under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aimed at creating an interoperable, inclusive, and citizen-centric digital healthcare ecosystem.

About Unified Health Interface (UHI)

The Unified Health Interface (UHI) is an interoperable digital network developed under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). It serves as the service layer of ABDM, enabling seamless interaction between patients and healthcare providers through multiple digital health applications.

The platform seeks to eliminate information asymmetry, improve access to healthcare services, and provide citizens with a wider choice of verified healthcare providers without restricting them to a single application or platform. By adopting an open-network model, UHI allows different health applications to communicate with one another through common digital protocols.

How Does UHI Work?

UHI functions through open protocols operating on the ABDM Gateway, which has been developed and is maintained by the National Health Authority (NHA).

When a citizen searches for a healthcare service using any UHI-enabled application, the request is transmitted through the ABDM Gateway to all registered healthcare providers on the network. The entire process—from discovering a healthcare provider and booking an appointment to receiving healthcare services—is carried out through a common interoperable framework, irrespective of the application being used.

The platform is integrated with key components of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission:

• Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) serves as the unique patient identifier.
• Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) verifies registered healthcare professionals.
• Health Facility Registry (HFR) authenticates healthcare institutions.
• Health Information Exchange (HIE) enables secure, consent-based sharing of health records.

Key Objectives

The Unified Health Interface has been designed with four major objectives:

• Interoperability: Enables patients and healthcare providers to use any UHI-enabled application for accessing or delivering healthcare services without platform dependency.
• Fair Discoverability: Ensures that every verified healthcare provider—irrespective of size, location, or digital platform—has an equal opportunity to be discovered by patients.
• Verification and Trust: Allows participation only by healthcare professionals and facilities verified through the HPR and HFR, thereby ensuring authenticity and trust.
• Open Protocols: Provides publicly accessible technical standards that allow developers to build innovative health applications in multiple languages and across different devices.