Know Your Doctor! Centre issuing Digital Doctor certificates to verify qualfied medical professionals

New Delhi: To curb the quackery menace and address the rising concern of unqualified practitioners treating patients, the Centre is issuing Digital Doctor Certificates with QR codes to verified healthcare professionals under a Know Your Doctor (KYD) service. The initiative aims to ensure that patients have access to verified doctors.

According to LiveMint news report, the initiative is being executed as a part of newly introduced KYD (Know Your Doctor) program under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). It requires all verified doctors to display these certificates at their clinics. These certificates will showcase a distinctive QR code. KYD has started on the lines of Know You Customer (KYC) service used for financial transactions.

By displaying the certificate, the patients will be able to verify the credentials of a medical professional. They can easily validate the doctor's qualifications by scanning the QR code exhibited at the doctor's clinic.

As of now, the government has verified around 139,000 doctors who have received the certificates. Over 200,000 nurses enrolled under national health digital mission are still needed to be given the certificates. Around 76.56% of the medical professionals on the government register are from the public sector.

Speaking about the registration process, an official informed Livemint, "Registration happens only when the profile information is verified either by the state government-appointed verifiers or by state medical councils, and thereafter the certificate is issued"

“These certificates have a QR code, on the lines of the CoWin vaccination certificate. The idea behind the QR code is to address the problem of quacks. A doctor is expected to prominently display the QR code at his/her clinic so that the patients can check whether that doctor is a quack or not," the official said.

“During COVID-19, it became very difficult for the government to identify doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. Now, we have a dedicated repository of medical professionals in the country which will also help the government to analysis the number of doctors, nurses and paramedics etc and we can utilize this manpower as and when required," added the official.

Meanwhile, a workshop providing the details of the initiative to the councils of all systems of medicines and national verifiers is expected to be held on May 30 by the National Health Authority. On this, the official said, “We will motivate medical councils on the process of onboarding medical professionals, speedy verification process, and certification issuance.”

Furthermore, as a part of the expansion of Healthcare Professional Registry (HPR), currently, NHA is onboarding dentists, national medical commission and allied healthcare professionals, and pharmacists on its national healthcare professional registry, adds the daily.

Also read- 'Know Your Doctor': Maharashtra Medical Council To Launch App To Combat Fraudulent Practitioners