Ecosystem participants
ABDM is one network with several kinds of participant on it. Each holds an identifier issued by a registry, and each plays a role in the exchange. This section has one page per participant, and every page answers the same three questions: who you are, what you can do, and why it is worth taking part.
Two of the eight do not integrate with anything. A citizen carries an identity and makes decisions. We run the network and issue the identifiers. The other six build software.
| Participant | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Citizen | The person the records are about, holding an ABHA number and address |
| Doctor | A registered professional holding an HPID from the professional registry |
| Hospital | A facility that creates records, shares them, and reads records held elsewhere |
| Diagnostics | A laboratory or imaging centre, sharing reports as a facility |
| Pharmacy | A pharmacy, sharing prescription and billing records as a facility |
| Insurer | A payer that reads records under consent, and settles claims on a separate gateway |
| PHR app | The citizen's own app: identity, linking, consent and records |
| NHA | The National Health Authority, which runs the gateways and the registries |
A role belongs to the entity, not the software
HIP and HIU are roles an entity takes, not kinds of software and not kinds of company. Whoever holds a record and publishes it is the HIP: a facility publishing through its HMIS, or a citizen pushing a record from their PHR app. Whoever asks to read records they did not create is the HIU, and an insurer or a referral service asks while holding neither an ABHA address nor a facility ID. So a hospital, a laboratory and a pharmacy sit in the same position and differ only in the records they hold.
Next
- How the pieces fit, the registries, the gateway and the roles in one page.
- Your integration path, what each role has to build.