eSanjeevani, the free telemedicine service of the Government of India, was recently integrated with the
- (a)Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission
- (b)Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana
- (c)Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana
- (d)Universal Health Insurance Scheme
Correct — A, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. eSanjeevani is the Government of India's free national telemedicine service, and the Press Information Bureau announced its integration with the National Health Authority's Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. The point of joining the two is record portability — a patient holding an ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) number can have the record generated during an eSanjeevani teleconsultation linked to a health locker of choice, and can share previously linked records with the doctor on the call, making the consultation paperless.
- (b)Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana — This is a social-security life and disability insurance scheme for poor rural households. It pays a benefit when something happens to the insured person and has nothing to do with digital health records or teleconsultation.
- (c)Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana — This is a low-premium accident insurance cover sold through bank accounts. It is a financial-inclusion insurance product, not a health-technology platform that a telemedicine service could plug into.
- (d)Universal Health Insurance Scheme — This is a health insurance product aimed at poor families. Insurance schemes pay for treatment; they do not supply the digital identity and record architecture that eSanjeevani was integrated with.
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is implemented by the National Health Authority and aims to build an integrated digital health system that links patients and practitioners and gives them access to health records. Its central building block is the ABHA number, a unique health account identifier that makes a person's records portable across hospitals, clinics and platforms. eSanjeevani is a separate service — a telemedicine platform developed by C-DAC and run under the health ministry — and integrating it with the Mission means teleconsultation records can flow into the same portable system.
Sort the four options by what kind of thing each is, and the answer appears without any memorisation. Three of them are insurance schemes — the giveaway word 'Bima' or 'Insurance' sits in the name — and an insurance scheme cannot be integrated with a telemedicine platform in any meaningful technical sense. Only one option is a digital-infrastructure mission. As of the September 2022 exam, PIB had reported a record 3.5 lakh teleconsultations on 26 and 27 April 2022, with eSanjeevani running at more than 80,000 Health and Wellness Centres; those counts have kept climbing since, so quote them as figures of that date rather than as current totals.
- eSanjeevani is the Government of India's free national telemedicine service, developed by C-DAC and run under the health ministry.
- The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is implemented by the National Health Authority to link patients and practitioners through interoperable digital health records.
- ABHA, the Ayushman Bharat Health Account number, is the unique identifier that makes an individual's health records portable.
- eSanjeevani AB-HWC is the doctor-to-doctor arm, through which a patient at a Health and Wellness Centre connects to a doctor or specialist at a hub.
- Patient consults a doctor over eSanjeevani
- The consultation generates a digital health record
- The record is linked to the patient's ABHA number under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission
- It is stored in a health locker of the patient's choice and can be shared with any future doctor
The integration turns a one-off teleconsultation into a portable record the patient controls.
- Mixing up insurance schemes such as PM-JAY, PMSBY and Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana with digital-infrastructure missions.
- Assuming enrolment in the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is compulsory — adoption by hospitals and citizens is voluntary.
A current-affairs one-liner pairing a flagship platform with the mission it was integrated into, with unrelated insurance schemes offered as distractors.
With reference to Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, consider the following statements: 1. Private and public hospitals must adopt it. 2. As it aims to achieve universal health coverage, every citizen of India should be part of it ultimately. 3. It has seamless portability across the country. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(b) 3 only
UPSC tested the same mission in the same year, and its answer supplies the reason the integration mattered — portability of records is the Mission's core design feature, while adoption by hospitals and citizens is voluntary, not mandatory.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is implemented by which body?
- (a)NITI Aayog
- (b)National Health Authority
- (c)Indian Council of Medical Research
- (d)Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
Answer(b) National Health Authority — the same body that runs PM-JAY.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, ABHA is
- (a)a hospital empanelment code
- (b)a unique health account number for an individual
- (c)an insurance policy number
- (d)an index of medicine prices
Answer(b) a unique health account number for an individual — it makes health records portable across providers.