NHA starts Know Your Doc (KYD) service on the lines of KYC

New Delhi: The Centre is issuing Digital Doctor certificates to verified healthcare professionals, to complement a KYD (Know Your Doctor) service to tackle the problem of quackery.

All verified doctors will need to display these certificates in front of their clinic. A QR code on the certificate will help patients verify the credentials.

The initiative is being executed under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which aims to build the country's digital healthcare infrastructure.

“These certificates have a QR code, on the lines of the CoWin vaccination certificate. The idea behind the QR code is to address the problem of quacks. A doctor is expected to prominently display the QR code at his/her clinic so that the patients can check whether that doctor is a quack or not,” said an official.

This certification is part of a new initiative called Know Your Doctor, on the lines of the KYC service used for financial transactions.

“Registration happens only when the profile information is verified either by the state government-appointed verifiers or by state medical councils, and thereafter the certificate is issued,” added the official.

According to Indian Medical Association, it is estimated that about one million unqualified medical practitioners – or quacks – are practicing medicine in the country, including 400,000 practitioners of ‘Indian medicine’.

The National Health Authority is holding a workshop on 30 May to provide an overview of ABDM and details of the initiative to the councils of all systems of medicines and national verifiers. “We will motivate medical councils on the process of onboarding medical professionals, speedy verification process, and certification issuance,” said the official.

“During covid-19, it became very difficult for the government to identify doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. Now, we have a dedicated repository of medical professionals in the country which will also help the government to analysis the number of doctors, nurses and paramedics etc and we can utilize this manpower as and when required,” added the official.

As of now, the government has verified around 139,000 doctors who have received the certificates. Over 200,000 nurses enrolled under national health digital mission are still needed to be given the certificates. Around 76.56% of the medical professionals on the government register are from the public sector.

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Meanwhile, NHA is currently onboarding doctors of all systems of medicine and nurses on its healthcare professionals registry. In future, the plan is to enroll dentists, allied healthcare professionals, pharmacists and healthcare professionals of all categories in its healthcare professional repository.

“The HPR will help in policy making. The data will be dynamic and can be analyzed in many ways. It helps us in knowing trends and forecasting as it will indicate to us how many doctors are in which age group, how many are retiring from practice, how many doctors are in which specialty, how many professionals we need in the coming days. Placing QR code at the clinics will aware patient that his doctor is well qualified,” said Dr Mahesh Verma, Chairperson, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Vice Chancellor of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University

There are two more registries under ABDM -- Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) for registering beneficiaries (citizens, patients, individuals) and Healthcare Facility Registry (HFR) for authorized healthcare facilities.

Queries sent to the health ministry and NHA spokesperson remained unanswered till press time.

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