PATNA, Dec. 11 -- Bihar has emerged as the national leader in patient registrations through digital token generation-popularly known as the "scan and share" method-at government health facilities, officials said on Wednesday. Speaking at a two-day international conference on "Innovations in Health Information Technology in Low- and Middle-Income Countries", organised by the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) at the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), Shashank Shekhar Sinha, CEO of Bihar Swasthya Suraksha Samiti, highlighted the state's sweeping digital advances in healthcare. He said Bihar also ranked first in Digital Health Incentive Scheme (DHIS) registrations and third nationally in Electronic Health Records (EHR) creation. Sinha added that Bihar stood fourth in Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) registrations - an important milestone, as ABHA provides citizens with a unique digital health identity enabling secure, consent-based access to their medical records under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. "This is a major achievement. Bihar is clearly leading in digitalization of health," he said. Additional health secretary Tshering Y Bhutia shared personal experiences to illustrate how state initiatives had expanded access to healthcare, noting that in just six months, over 16.5 million digital OPD registrations were recorded. AIIMS-Patna executive director Prof (Brig) Dr Raju Agarwal showcased innovations developed at the institute, including the Swasthya mobile app for e-consultations and test reports, telemedicine-based remote consultations, and AI-enabled diagnostic tools for interpreting X-rays and ECGs. Dr Bindey Kumar, director, IGIMS, underlined how digital transformation had significantly strengthened healthcare systems, contrasting the global impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu with the far lower death toll during the Covid-19 pandemic. State surveillance officer Dr Ragini Mishra traced the journey of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) from manual reporting to digital portals, while Jay Prabha Medanta Hospital medical director Dr Ravi Shankar Singh said the healthcare sector had been one of the biggest beneficiaries of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly after the pandemic. Academics from leading institutions such as TISS, IIPH Gandhinagar, and IIHMR, along with representatives from Uganda, England and Qatar, contributed global perspectives on health technology innovations through online mode. State Bank of India general manager R Natarajan noted that banks, too, were playing a role in the digital overhaul of healthcare systems. Earlier, ADRI member-secretary Ashmita Gupta stressed that digitalisation in healthcare would succeed only if challenges related to infrastructure, training, and the digital divide were effectively addressed....