Associate, Abdm

Overview:
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries.

In India, CHAI works in partnership with its India registered affiliate William J Clinton Foundation (WJCF) under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at the Central and States' levels on an array of high priority initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Currently, WJCF supports government partners across projects to expand access to quality care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, tuberculosis, COVID-19, common cancers, sexual and reproductive health, immunization, and essential medicines.

**Project Background**:
Launched in September 2021, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) seeks to power India’s quest for Universal Health Coverage by creating the interoperability required for digital health technologies and platforms to ‘speak’ seamlessly to each other, thereby making healthcare interventions more affordable and accessible for all Indian citizens.

Central to ABDM is the principle of consent, and the concept of a health account (Ayushman Bharat Health Account or ABHA). An Indian Citizen can create an ABHA and link their personal health and / or medical records to this account. Using the ABDM’s Consent Manager functionality, they can then share their records with any other system that is ABDM-enabled. For instance, if they have been referred to a specialist for a consultation, they may provide them with access to diagnostic and other records that provide the specialist a comprehensive view of their medical history. Similarly, at the registration desk of a hospital, instead of waiting in a long queue, a patient can simply scan a QR code and transfer basic details about themselves (attached to their ABHA) to the hospital’s registration system and receive a ‘token’. This ‘scan and share’ functionality has been deployed across 1,904 facilities across the country and has already generated over 61 lakh tokens. It remains, however, just one example of the utility of ABDM. Many more such functionalities and use cases of that unlock the full potential of ABDM are on the anvil.

There has already been tremendous progress in the adoption of ABDM:

- Over 440 million ABHA created
- Over 290 million health records linked to ABHAs
- Over 200,000 health facilities registered and verified (on the Health Facilities Registry)
- Over 200,000 health professionals registered and verified (on the Healthcare Professionals Registry)
- Over 100 partners have made their systems ABDM-enabled

The National Health Authority (NHA), an autonomous government institution, the implementation of ABDM across the country and WJCF supports its ambitious vision, to strengthen the roll-out and scale-up this transformative digital health initiative. We also provide support to the Madhya Pradesh State ABDM Office in driving adoption of ABDM. Our focus is on driving adoption of ABDM among healthcare providers, especially private sector physicians. ABDM’s progression to date has been led largely by the government sector and increased adoption by the private sector will help unleash its full potential. A key constituency in the private sector are doctors, w