The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is a set of shared digital rails for health: an ID for each person, registries of facilities and professionals, and a consent-based way to exchange health records between any two systems. Integrating a hospital system with ABDM means your software can create and verify ABHA numbers, publish the records it holds and, with consent, fetch records held elsewhere.
The building blocks
Five terms cover most of what you need.
The three milestones
NHA structures integration into milestones. Each is tested separately in the sandbox.
What M1 looks like in the product
M1 changes the registration desk.
Scan and share is the feature front-desk staff notice: registration without typing.
What M2 looks like
As a HIP, your system tells ABDM that records exist for a patient and hands them over when a valid consent arrives. Records are grouped into care contexts, such as a visit or an admission, and linked to the patient's ABHA address.
What M3 looks like
As an HIU, a doctor in your system can ask for a patient's past records. The request names the purpose, record types, date range and how long access is needed. The patient approves in their PHR app, your system receives the artefact, fetches data from each HIP, decrypts it and shows it in the clinical screen. Access ends when the consent expires or is revoked.
Engineering notes
Teams new to ABDM underestimate a few things.
Why integrate
Beyond patient convenience, ABDM integration is increasingly expected in government empanelment and insurance processes, and NHA has run a Digital Health Incentive Scheme rewarding facilities and software companies for linked records. Check NHA's current notices for scheme status. The path from sandbox to production, including testing and the security audit, is covered in our companion guide on milestones.
This article explains what to build, not legal advice. Rules change; confirm against the current official text before relying on it.
