Health First: Ministry Launches Portal To Monitor Diseases And Access Real Time Data  

Union Health Secretary, Preeti Sudan launched the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) as a part of the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) on 26 November 2018.

The initiative will provide near-real-time data to policymakers for detecting outbreaks, reducing the morbidity and mortality and lessening disease burden in the people, according to a Press Information Bureau press release.

Further, she stated that the success of this platform would depend primarily on the quality of data shared by the states. “Data is power and power is to help people,” she said. She urged the state secretaries to adopt the platform to strengthen early outbreak detection and informed public health response. About 32,000 people at the block level, 13,000 at the district level and 900 at the state level have been trained to implement the IDSP.

“For World Health Organisation (WHO), it has been a privilege to support the development of the platform in collaboration with numerous government stakeholders,” said WHO Representative to India, Dr Henk Bekedam.

IHIP uses the latest technologies to collect and secure health record management, which will help better diagnosis of diseases, reduce patient re-visits and prevent medical errors and to take better decisions.