Healthcare in India has long been provided in unconnected silos by individual doctors and in small hospitals. Care is typically initiated by patients who seek treatment in the private sector for which they pay providers an “out-of-pocket” fee.1 Most patients receive either printed or short, hastily handwritten summaries of their care. This serves to tie patients to the provider who knows them, but it means that when they do happen to move and seek another provider there are no reliable means of transferring information. As a healthcare provider I often have to redo blood tests and even re-administer drugs because there are no shared electronic records, paper records may be incomplete or hard to interpret, and I can’t always rely on a patient’s memory. Because of the lack of information patients have little choice but to agree with providers’ management decisions. These duplicate and redundant care practices not only contribute to unnecessary costs for patients but increase avoidable harm and leave people feeling ignored and disconnected from the healthcare system. Public sector providers (those paid by private insurance) have some interest in reducing …

中文翻译：

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改善印度健康的数字连接

长期以来，印度的医疗保健一直由个体医生和小医院在互不相连的孤岛中提供。护理通常由在私营部门寻求治疗的患者发起，他们向提供者支付“自费”费用。1 大多数患者会收到打印的或简短的、匆忙手写的护理摘要。这有助于将患者与认识他们的提供者联系起来，但这意味着当他们碰巧搬家并寻求其他提供者时，没有可靠的信息传递方式。作为医疗保健提供者，我经常不得不重新进行血液检查，甚至重新给药，因为没有共享的电子记录，纸质记录可能不完整或难以解释，而且我不能总是依赖患者的记忆。由于缺乏信息，患者别无选择，只能同意提供者的管理决定。这些重复和冗余的护理做法不仅会增加患者不必要的成本，还会增加可避免的伤害，并使人们感到被忽视并与医疗保健系统脱节。公共部门提供者（由私人保险支付的提供者）有兴趣减少……