Tracking nursing: On the Nurses Registration and Tracking System
The Nurses Registration and Tracking System in India has failed to register the majority of the country's nursing workforce, with less than a third enrolled after seven years. Regional disparities and jurisdictional conflicts between state and central councils are cited as the primary causes for this systemic failure.
Why it matters
Incomplete digital tracking of healthcare professionals hinders national health planning, inter-state transfers, and the verification of credentials for employment.
For a country where the human resources in health care will always fall short of the recommended patient-professional ratio, it is important to make sure that every single resource is harnessed. However, government data tabled in the Lok Sabha have shown that the Nurses Registration and Tracking System, created over seven years ago, has registered less than a third of the total nurses in the country. Only 14.24 lakh of the 46.02 lakh registered nursing personnel have been enrolled, leaving 31.78 lakh outside the national system . Clearly, the move to create an accurate national registry and streamline registration-related services on a single platform for all nurses is far from yielding satisfactory results. There are also stark regional disparities, and unexpected performances with the large southern States (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh) figuring among the laggers, while Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha show between 80%-99% enrolment rates.
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