Digital health and Ayush: Harnessing innovation for a new era of traditional health care

The expanding and transformative power of digital technologies in health sector has emerged as a significant and valuable intervention to strengthen the existing healthcare models by improving the service delivery, accessibility, and efficiency to meet the global health challenges. Traditional Medicine (TM) has been practiced and adopted for ages across different countries and civilizations. Owing to the increasing awareness in holistic health approaches, emphasizing prevention and promotion aspects of health, TM is becoming more and more popular worldwide. As a result, many nations are gradually incorporating TM into national healthcare systems and changing their healthcare frameworks from merely providing medical care to the provision of holistic health care. To improve healthcare outcomes by empowering patients and communities to better understand their evolving needs and take control of their own care, the integration of digital technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), in TMs has emerged as one of the solutions[1] that can potentially enhance TM research, health services, and self-care.[2] Since TM have long offered all-encompassing strategies for well-being and wellness, its integration with the cutting-edge digital health solutions driven by telemedicine, big data analytics, and AI enhance the conservation, validation, and sharing of traditional medical knowledge, further accelerating the growth and impact of TM and holistic health care. It has been observed that there are numerous knowledge gaps and risks associated with the integration of digital solutions, necessitating the development of holistic frameworks tailored to TM in areas such as regulation, knowledge sharing, capacity building, data governance, and equity promotion, to ensure the safe, ethical, and evidence-based integration of digital technologies into the TM landscape.[3] Digital health technologies have the ability to revolutionize the validation of TM through the detection of patterns through holistic concepts, the reduction of bias, enhancement of its credibility within global healthcare paradigm, while maintaining its traditional roots, offering great opportunities for the growth of TM.[4] India’s leadership during its G20 presidency (during 2023) brought digital health and TM to the global stage. The G20 and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the Global Initiative on Digital Health to help countries implement interoperable digital systems that strengthen healthcare delivery. India’s G20-led advocacy emphasizes the ethical deployment of AI, digital sovereignty, and open collaborations, particularly for underserved segments relying on TM.[5] This was followed by a Global Conference on Digital Health-Taking Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to the Last Citizen, which was organized as a co-brand partner under India’s G20 Presidency by WHO-South-East Asia Region in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, with the global goal of fostering agreement on the promotion of digital public goods as a critical enabler in reaching UHC targets.[6] Furthermore, as part of India’s G20 Presidency, the G20 Digital Innovation Alliance initiative was launched under the Ministry of Electronics and IT Startup Hub, with the participation of startups from 29 countries showcasing solutions across six key themes: education, agritech, fintech, health care, digital infrastructure, and the circular economy.[7] In India, the digital transformation in the health sector was brought by the establishment of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), India’s national digital health infrastructure platform, in 2021. Before this, a national telemedicine network, eSanjeevani, was introduced in 2009 to serve the rural residents. Later, in 2020, it was developed into eSanjeevani Outpatient Department (OPD), a national teleconsultation service that provided remote patient consultations at home during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic.[8] ABDM, serving as the backbone, deemed necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the nation, has seen substantial progress. Till date, 828 million Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) Numbers, 775.5 million ABHA Linked Health Records, and 7.30 lakhs healthcare professionals have been registered along with 24.18 million ABHA app downloads across the country, showing the substantial growth of digital health infrastructure of nation.[9] The eSanjeevani platform has facilitated over 427 million teleconsultations nationwide so far, clearly demonstrating the vast reach and impact of e-Healthcare services in providing medical care to even the most remote regions of the country.[10] Moreover, this National telemedicine service has been serving the nation with over 135,926 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, through 18,052+ hubs and more than 771 online OPDs serviced by a team of over 228,442 doctors, medical specialists, superspecialists, and health workers (as on October 27, 2025).[10] The Ministry of Ayush (MoA), Government of India, has created Ayush Grid (AG), an Ayush-centric Digital Health Platform, as part of the large-scale digital transformation of the health sector of the nation, with key components including health services, education, Ayush research, training programs, citizen-centric services, drug licensing portal, and media outreach along with foundational support to a number of citizen-focused projects, including the Showcase of Ayurvedic Historical Imprints (SAHI) portal, National Ayush Morbidity And Standardized Terminologies Electronic (NAMASTE) portal, and Ayush Research Portal (ARP). The project is advancing the global integration of India’s traditional medical knowledge systems within evidence-based, digital healthcare frameworks, in addition to conserving and validating the TM globally.[11] Before these, the MoA has been already revolutionizing and transforming the landscape of Ayush system of medicines through the launch of various pilot projects such as Ayush Hospital Management Information System (A-HMIS), Tele-Medicine, Yogalocator Application, Bhuvan Application, Yoga Portal, and Case Registry Portal, as a part of its digital initiatives.[12] As part of the AG initiative, the “My Ayush Integrated Services Portal” has been launched to serve as a one-stop digital platform. This comprehensive dashboard provides users with seamless access to a wide range of important services – including the Ayush Research Portal, e-Aushadhi for digital pharmaceutical management, and the pharmacovigilance system – all in one convenient location. By integrating these essential tools and resources, the portal greatly simplifies processes for users and enhances the efficiency and accessibility of Ayush sector services for practitioners, researchers, and the general public alike.[13] In 2018, the WHO partnered with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and established a Focus Group on AI for Health (FG-AI4H), which serve at the interface of multiple fields (e.g., Machine Learning [ML]/AI, medicine, regulation, public health, statistics, and ethics), including decision-making to develop a standardized and transparent benchmarking framework for AI solutions in health.[14] Later, in July 2023, the Global Initiative on AI for Health was formed to enable, facilitate, and implement AI in health care under the WHO, ITU, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).[15] Underscoring the potential scope of AI in TM sector, the WHO and ITU initiated a topic group on AI for TM (TG-TM) under FG-AI4H in 2022 with the goal of coordinating the setting of benchmarks for quality assessment of TM systems using AI, creating custom AI ecosystems for TM, augmenting its practice, research, and policy-making, and facilitating the implementation of AI at the ground level.[16] In partnership with the WHO Global TM Centre and the Department of Digital Health and Innovation (AI and digital frontiers unit), the All India Institute of Ayurveda, New Delhi, India, hosted a 2-day Global Technical Consultation Group meeting with the theme “AI for Global Health: Advancing TM.”[17] The event focused on the potential of AI to improve research, diagnostics, and knowledge preservation within TM, with particular attention to ethical and regulatory issues, further promoting collaborative education, and building practitioners’ skills to effectively use AI. The event was structured around four core themes, including Digital activities in the South-East Asia area, the meeting covered digital health initiatives, Intellectual Property (IP) in TM, a training framework for stakeholders, and the creation of a TM Global Library.[3,18] It provided insight into the rapidly changing AI for health landscape and its application in TM, further highlighting the context of ethical and regulatory considerations along with identifying potential actions to support effective and responsible integration of AI into TM.[3] The report also highlights a number of innovative AI-driven developments by India, such as the ground-breaking Ayurgenomics project, combining modern genomics with Ayurvedic knowledge, and predictive diagnostics using Prakriti-based ML models, etc. Furthermore, the country’s efforts to digitize traditional knowledge, such as the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), are commended as global models for the preservation and responsible use of indigenous medical heritage.[19] Recently, a 2-day National Workshop on “IT Solutions in the Ayush Sector” was held under the National Ayush Mission, highlighting important steps toward digitalization. This event gathered 91 representatives from 23 States and Union Territories, along with 155 attendees – including senior officials, technical specialists, and policymakers – to advance India’s efforts for a modern, responsive, and citizen-oriented Ayush digital health system. The workshop gave a detailed overview of the MoA’s digital framework, illustrating how the integrated approach is establishing the groundwork for a unified, citizen-focused, and globally connected Ayush ecosystem.[20] DEDICATED ISSUE ON “DIGITAL HEALTH-ADVANCING TRADITIONAL MEDICINE THROUGH INNOVATION” As part of the 10th Ayurveda Day celebration on September 23, 2025, the MoA announced a dedicated issue of the International Journal of Ayurveda Research (IJAR) in recognition of the growing significance and broader scope of applicability of digital innovations in the TM health sector. This issue aims to explore and document the scope of Digital Health Innovations in Ayush systems and to assess the gray areas existing in technological intervention of Ayush, which further require more robust strategies and policies for global integration of digital innovation in TM. This issue invited articles from researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and stakeholders from various sectors to contribute their insights focusing on diversified domains including AI, ML, and emerging technologies, involving ethics, challenges, and global comparisons, public health data, digital infrastructure for Ayush health care, etc. In response, the journal has received exemplary responses from various institutions and research organizations. IJAR acknowledges the contributions made by all the researchers for the valuable insights and appreciates their significant role in advancing TM and Ayush at the global platform. Each contribution demonstrates thorough research, innovative thinking, and a common goal of fostering excellence in the field of Ayush. The symbiotic integration of digital health technology and TM (Ayush) represents a cultural as well as scientific transformation of health care, rather than a technological update. This issue seeks to showcase how digital platforms, data-driven research, and policy frameworks are essential for improving the accessibility, safety, and efficacy of Ayush systems and TM across the globe. IJAR expresses its profound gratitude to all of the researchers, scholars, academicians, and stakeholders who contributed and provided significant value to this publication.