One ABDM integration, for every facility you run
Connect your hospital management system — HMS, HMIS, EMR or lab software — to the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission through one REST API, without building the gateway plumbing yourself.
- Credentials issued immediately
- No sales call to start building
# your call
POST /v1/care-contexts/link
Authorization: Bearer swk_sand_…
{
"patient_reference": "MRN-90881",
"care_context_references": ["OPD-2291"]
}
← 202 Accepted
{
"id": "5f3c9a1e",
"status": "initiated",
"mode": "hip_initiated"
}
# 40s later, on your webhook — correlated for you
POST https://your-hmis.example/abdm/events
{
"event": "care_context.linked",
"correlation_id": "5f3c9a1e",
"data": {
"patient_reference": "MRN-90881",
"care_contexts": ["OPD-2291"]
}
}
01 What it covers
Four milestones, one surface
ABDM is four certifications, dozens of endpoints, an asynchronous callback model and a mandatory encryption scheme. This is the layer that absorbs all of it and hands you ordinary JSON.
- M1
-
ABHA numbers and addresses
Create an Ayushman Bharat Health Account by Aadhaar or mobile OTP, verify an existing one, and resolve ABHA addresses. Aadhaar numbers and OTPs are sealed with ABDM’s public key before they leave the server and are never stored.
- M2
-
Linking records to a patient
Register patients by your own MRN, attach care contexts — one episode of care each — and link them so the citizen sees them in their PHR app. Re-sending the same reference updates rather than duplicating.
- M3
-
Consent and data exchange
Raise consent requests as an HIU, honour them as a HIP. Records are released only inside the granted date range and HI types, and a revoked artefact stops working the moment it is revoked.
- M4
-
Facility and practitioner registries
Search HFR and HPR, and register your own facility through the full four-step flow. The connector holds the tracking id across steps so you never carry it between calls.
- FHIR R4
-
Bundles built for you
Send clinical data in a flat JSON shape. The connector assembles the FHIR R4 bundle to the NRCeS profile ABDM validates against — OP consultation, prescription, diagnostic report, discharge summary and the rest.
- Callbacks
-
The asynchronous half, handled
Almost every ABDM call is answered later, on a separate channel. The connector receives, verifies and correlates those callbacks, then delivers one signed webhook to you. No polling.
02 Architecture
Where the connector sits
Almost every ABDM call is answered later, on a separate channel. That round trip — and the correlation between the two halves — is the part most integrations get wrong, and the part this absorbs.
Steps 3 and 4 are the reason this exists. ABDM answers on its own channel, minutes later, against a request id you have to have kept. The connector holds that state, verifies the callback signature against ABDM’s JWKS, deduplicates retries, and hands you one ordinary webhook.
03 Getting started
From signup to first ABHA in an afternoon
The sandbox is open. You do not need to talk to anyone to start.
-
Register and take your sandbox keys
Create an account, verify your email, and a sandbox client id and secret are issued straight away. The environment is a property of the credential, not of the URL — so moving to production later changes your key, not your code.
-
Register a facility
A facility is the ABDM identity your records are attributed to. Its HIP and HIU ids are what ABDM puts in the callback headers, so nothing can be sent until one exists.
-
Call the API
One bearer token from
POST /v1/auth/token, then ordinary REST. Every endpoint ships with copy-pasteable curl, Python and JavaScript in the reference. -
Certify, then switch the key
Complete NHA milestone certification and the CERT-In security audit, request production access in the portal, and swap the credential. Same endpoints, same code.
The portal, with illustrative sandbox figures. Every screen here is also an API call.
04 Certification
What production access actually takes
The integration work is what this connector removes. The certification is still yours to complete, and these are the stages it runs through.
| Stage | What happens | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Sandbox build | Integrate and exercise every flow against the NHA sandbox | 2–6 weeks |
| Functional testing | Test cases mapped to the NHA milestone checklist, with API logs as evidence | 1–2 weeks |
| WASA security audit | Web Application Security Assessment by a CERT-In empanelled auditor | 5–8 weeks |
| NHA review | Audit report, evidence pack and Safe-to-Host certificate submitted for committee review | 2–4 weeks |
| Go live | Production credentials issued against the live gateway | — |
Building on this connector removes the integration work from that timeline, not the certification itself. Nobody can do that part for you — but you go into it with the API surface already exercised against the sandbox.
05 Who it is for
Built for whoever holds the patient record
Hospitals and clinics
Enrol ABHA at OPD registration, share discharge summaries and prescriptions, and pull a patient’s history from other providers with their consent.
Health software companies
Add ABDM to your product once and give it to every hospital you sell to. Multi-tenant from the ground up: each customer gets isolated credentials, facilities and audit trail.
Diagnostic labs and pharmacies
Publish diagnostic reports and dispensation records to the patient’s PHR as a Health Information Provider, keyed on the ABHA address they already have.
06 How it compares
Cheaper than building, and nothing to replace
Three ways onto ABDM: build it, replace the HMIS with one that has it, or connect what you run. They differ far more over two years than on day one, because NHA keeps changing the APIs and someone has to keep up.
In-house, in lakhs
A team for a quarter or two, then paid agency testing and a security audit, then every NHA change lands on the same team.
A new HMIS, with ABDM inside
ABDM comes bundled, and so does migrating billing, OPD, IPD and pharmacy, and retraining every department. If new software is what you want, ours has ABDM inside.
From ₹2,999 per hospital a month
Every milestone on the first plan, a free sandbox, your software keeps the record, and NHA’s next change is our problem.
07 Questions
Frequently asked questions
What is ABDM integration?
How long does ABDM certification take?
Do we need to build FHIR bundles ourselves?
Is there a sandbox?
Where is patient data stored?
Start with the sandbox
Free sandbox credentials, the full API reference, and a Postman collection that makes real calls. No commitment until you go to production.