Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM): ABHA, Registries, Federated Architecture and Privacy

Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM): Meaning, Launch and Purpose

ABDM's Aim, the 2020 Pilot and the National Rollout

The mission's aim is a platform on which health data can move between providers, so that every citizen can have a longitudinal electronic health record, a running history of their care, accessed and exchanged with their consent.

The Prime Minister announced the pilot, then called the National Digital Health Mission, from the Red Fort on 15 August 2020. It ran in six Union Territories: Andaman and Nicobar, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. The Prime Minister launched the national rollout on 27 September 2021. The National Health Authority (NHA), under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, implements it.

The mission builds on the Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM) trinity and other digital initiatives, and it serves the National Health Policy 2017, which lists a digital health information system among the programmes that carry out its goal of universal access to good-quality healthcare. It uses open, interoperable, standards-based digital systems while keeping health information secure, confidential and private, and it is meant to create interoperability in digital health much as the Unified Payments Interface did for payments.

ABDM and PM‑JAY: The Digital Mission and the Insurance Scheme

Ayushman Bharat, launched in 2018, rests on two pillars. The first is the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM‑JAY), the health insurance scheme that covers hospital treatment for eligible low-income households; the second is the network of Health and Wellness Centres, now called Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, which provide primary care. ABDM carries the Ayushman Bharat name but is a separate digital mission. It builds identities, registries and the channels through which records are shared, and it pays no medical bill.

• PM‑JAY in 2026: Cashless treatment worth over ₹1.91 lakh crore through more than 37,000 empanelled hospitals in seven years.
• ABDM in 2026: 93.95 crore ABHA accounts and 105 crore linked health records by July 2026.

The two are being drawn closer. At a national review meeting of the NHA in July 2026, States were urged to bring PM‑JAY and ABDM closer together, and ABDM is now linked with PM‑JAY, CGHS, ESIC and Nikshay.

ABDM Building Blocks: ABHA, Registries and Digital Health Services

ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account): The 14-Digit Health ID

ABHA stands for Ayushman Bharat Health Account. It is a unique, random 14-digit health identifier, earlier called the Health ID, which may be issued digitally or on paper. Records created at different hospitals, laboratories and clinics can be linked to it, so that a patient's history follows them between providers.

Creating an ABHA is voluntary. To reach people with little internet access or digital skill, the ABHA portal and app are multilingual, and ABHA can be created in assisted and offline modes. Cumulative ABHA creation rose from 14.7 crore in 2021 to 84.5 crore in 2025, and the count crossed 90 crore on 30 May 2026.

Institutions can still require it within their own processes. In March 2026 the National Medical Commission directed all medical colleges to generate and link the ABHA IDs of all patients using outpatient, inpatient and emergency services at their hospitals, to verify clinical workload, and to submit their hospitals' Health Facility Registry IDs.

Healthcare Professionals Registry, Health Facility Registry and Drug Registry

Trust in shared records depends on knowing who is on the other side. The Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) and the Health Facility Registry (HFR) are repositories of all healthcare providers across both modern and traditional systems of medicine. All facilities, public and private, can join, including hospitals, clinics, laboratories, imaging centres and pharmacies.

• Scale by July 2026: 9.85 lakh healthcare professionals and 5.33 lakh health facilities registered, and 2.72 lakh facilities using ABDM-enabled software.
• Drug Registry (June 2026): A standardised source of medicine information built with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation and the National Resource Centre for EHR Standards, using SNOMED CT.
• Incentives: Under the Digital Health Incentive Scheme, facilities and digital solution companies earn cash incentives for creating interoperable digital health records.

Unified Health Interface, Aarogya Setu 2.0, NHCX and Telemedicine

The Unified Health Interface (UHI) is the service layer of ABDM, an open network with common technical standards. Before it, a patient and a provider had to be on the same app to interact; through UHI, any verified participant can find and transact with any other, whatever app each uses. Its four principles are interoperability, fair discoverability, verification and open protocols.

• UHI services: Its live services include blood availability through e-RaktKosh, search for PM‑JAY empanelled hospitals, the location of Jan Aushadhi Kendras and ambulance booking.
• Aarogya Setu 2.0: The COVID‑19 contact-tracing app, handed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT to the NHA, has been relaunched as a personal health record app.
• National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX): It carries claims information between payers, providers and beneficiaries.
• Scan and Share: Launched in 2022, it gives a patient a queue token when they scan a QR code at the registration counter, and it has cut registration waits at participating hospitals from about an hour to 2 to 5 minutes.
• Telemedicine: The Health Ministry's telemedicine service, eSanjeevani, was integrated with ABDM in June 2022, so users can create an ABHA and share their records with doctors.

Federated Architecture of ABDM and Consent-Based Data Sharing

What Is Federated Architecture Under ABDM

Federated architecture means that health records are not pooled in one place. When a patient's record is created on ABDM, it stays with whoever created it, the hospital, laboratory or insurer, and there is no central government server storing all the data. Records move within the ABDM network only when the patient consents.

Consent under ABDM is revocable and time-bound. The Health Information Exchange and Consent Manager (HIE‑CM) is the gateway that makes records from different providers readable to each other by prescribing common data standards. Health data used for public health research is anonymised.

• Sandbox and audit: Every app is tested in a sandbox and passes security audits, such as a Web Application Security Audit, before it can connect to ABDM.
• Health Data Management Policy, 2020: Every app that joins ABDM must comply with this policy.
• EHR standards: The Health Ministry notified electronic health record standards in September 2013 and released revised ones in December 2016, promoted by the National Resource Centre for EHR Standards.

ABDM Debates: Health Data Privacy, Digital Divide and Adoption

Health Data Privacy: The DPDP Act 2023 and the DPDP Rules 2025

Health records are among the most sensitive data a person has. The general law that governs them is the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), enacted on 11 August 2023, and the DPDP Rules, 2025, notified in the Gazette of 13 November 2025 to give full effect to the Act.

• At once: Rules 1, 2 and 17 to 21 came into force on publication.
• After one year: Rule 4 comes into force.
• After eighteen months: Rules 3, 5 to 16, 22 and 23 come into force, giving organisations an eighteen-month period for phased compliance.

Unlike the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, the Act does not distinguish between personal and sensitive personal data, so health data has no separate, higher tier of protection in the law itself. ABDM relies on its own safeguards, namely consent before any exchange, the federated design, sandbox testing and security audits.

Health Data and Artificial Intelligence: SAHI and BODH

Linked records also make AI in healthcare possible. Health data on ABDM is anonymised and can be used to track disease prevalence and design targeted programmes. AI tools can help prioritise a radiology scan, alert a care team to a deteriorating patient, or support a physician handling a complex case in a smaller city.

On 17 February 2026, at the India AI Impact Summit, the Health Ministry launched two initiatives for this. SAHI (Secure AI for Health Initiative) is a governance framework and national road map for the responsible use of AI in healthcare. BODH (Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI) provides a structured way to test and validate AI solutions before large-scale deployment.

Digital Divide, Voluntary Participation and the Adoption Challenge

A digital health system can leave behind people without phones, connectivity or digital skills. The mission's answers are its multilingual portal and app, assisted and offline ABHA creation, and voluntary participation, so that the mission itself does not require anyone to hold an ABHA, though some institutions, such as medical college hospitals, now ask for it.

Adoption is the other test. At the third Mission Steering Group meeting on 10 July 2026, the Health Minister said that while a robust digital infrastructure had been created, the next phase must focus on maximising its adoption and use. A week later the Minister of State said ABDM 2.0 should be measured not merely by the number of digital records, but by the everyday difference it makes for patients.