Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach emphasises that real human development depends on expanding people’s freedoms in terms of their ability to live a quality life.. Within this framework, health is the cornerstone which  not only determines one’s capacity to learn, work, but also enables one to participate fully in national development. India is home to over 1.4 billion people with a rapidly evolving economy. A healthy population is  thus an imperative for the development of the country’s human capital and a necessity for sustained economic growth.

Over the past two decades, India has achieved measurable progress in key health outcomes. Life expectancy has increased  to 72 years in 2023. The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has declined from 39 per 1000 live births in 2014 to 27 per 1000 live births in 2021, while Maternal Mortality Ratio dropped significantly from 130 to 93 per lakh live births since 2014. The Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), one of India’s most comprehensive public health initiatives aiming to provide life-saving vaccines to millions of newborns and pregnant women each year, has been a remarkable intervention, with the country’s full immunization coverage at 93.23% nationally (2023–24)

Despite this significant  progress, various  policy interventions and institutional reforms, existing structural gaps and newly emerging challenges continue to constrain health outcomes. India’s health ecosystem continues to exhibit various socio- economic inequalities across states and regions, as well as across income and social groups. Additionally,  India’s disease profile has shifted from communicable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which now account for nearly two-thirds of all deaths. Public health expenditure, at around 1.9% GDP, remains far below the 2.5% of GDP recommended by National health Policy, 2017. The challenge is further compounded by the spread of health-related misinformation in the digital space, persistent infodemic management issues, insufficient availability of public health data, and limited digitisation within the healthcare ecosystem. This constrains evidence-based policymaking and restricts the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

The key policy question before us, therefore, is how India can navigate these complex and evolving healthcare challenges. The pandemic served as an inflection point, steering policy towards digital adoption in the Indian healthcare system and prompting a reimagining of healthcare governance, anchored in innovation, collective action, and a digitally enabled ecosystem. Institutionalisation of the digital health is at the heart of this transformation which led to the establishment of the National Health Authority (NHA) in 2019. It marked a transformative step in designing strategy, building technological infrastructure and to create a National Digital Health Ecosystem. The NHA, which administers two flagship initiatives—Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)—has emerged as a central driver of institutional reform and innovation transforming the Indian healthcare public infrastructure. AB-PMJAY represents the world’s largest publicly funded health insurance scheme, providing coverage of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care to more than 55 crore beneficiaries. Over 8.9 crore hospitals have been involved since the scheme’s inception, underscoring its reach and relevance. Through initiatives like digital health IDs, the NHA has enhanced accountability, interoperability, and transparency across the Indian health system by  building a unified national digital health ecosystem. It connects patients, healthcare providers, insurers, and regulators through interoperable digital frameworks. Key components such as the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), Health Facility Registry (HFR), Health Professional Registry (HPR), Drug and Diagnostic Repositories, and the Unified Health Interface (UHI) form the backbone of this ecosystem. 

By digitising health records and fostering data interoperability, it reduces duplication, enhances clinical decision-making, and empowers citizens with greater control over their health data. Moreover, the digitisation of health data opens vast opportunities for driving innovation across various sectors of healthcare and acts as a foundational base on which Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be leveraged within the healthcare ecosystem. The digitisation of healthcare data will not only address the fragmentation of existing public health data but also help in identifying pain points in patient journey mapping and the overall healthcare ecosystem. It also creates wide potential opportunities for private players to contribute to and drive innovation in the healthcare ecosystem.

However, the future of India’s healthcare transformation depends on how effectively the healthcare workers and professionals  adapt to data and AI readiness. AI is already reshaping diagnostics, personalized care, documentation, workflow optimization in hospitals and drug and disease research. But its effectiveness depends on the extent to which upskilling and competencies to use AI are developed within the healthcare ecosystem. Generative AI tools can improve efficiency in drafting patient summaries, preparing health awareness material, documenting records, and building health communication campaigns.  Health professionals – doctors, nurses, ASHAs, and Anganwadi workers – need to  be equipped with foundational AI and digital literacy with  AI tools and approaches to harness the potential benefits of it responsibly. The path towards a digitally and AI enabled-health future requires a holistic approach to upskill the healthcare ecosystem. Health must be understood as a strategic investment in human capital and national resilience. As digital transformation deepens and AI becomes integral to healthcare delivery, India must expand AI upskilling programmes for healthcare professionals and workers to strengthen the future of the Digital Health Mission.

(Deepak Gautam is Public Policy Lead at DataLEADS)    

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