In his budget speech yesterday, Shri Jaitley announced launching of .

Ayushman Bharat [ National Health Protection Scheme ]

It will be a game changer

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HIGHLIGHTS :

· It will cover 10 crore poor families ( approx. 50 crore persons ; 40 % of our population )

· It will pay insurance premium for coverage of Rs 5 lakh claims per family per year

· At Rs 5,000 premium ( for Rs 5 lakh ) , total cost to government could be Rs 50,000 cr / year.

Some other estimates place the annual outgo on premium of between Rs 2 – 2.5 lakh*crore

· Because of the huge size of the scheme, government will be able to negotiate the cost of the medicines and the services

· Budget allocation = Rs 2,000 crore

· It will subsume earlier scheme “ Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana “ of Rs 30,000 / year claim

· It will be the biggest such Health Insurance Scheme, anywhere in the World

· Details of the mechanism of the scheme are yet to be worked out and announced

· Budget also allocated Rs 1,200 crore to create “ Health and Wellness Centres “ in India’s 1.5 lakh “ Health Sub Centres “ , to provide free essential medicines closer to home through primary , secondary and tertiary health systems

· Budget also allocated Rs 600 crore for nutritional support at Rs 500 per month to TB patients ( which infects an estimated 27.9 lakh people each year and kills 4.23 lakh persons )

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COMMENTS :

· Opposition parties say : This is a “ Jumla “ and will flop like the earlier scheme

· Experts say : We just don’t have any experience in running such a massive scheme

· Economists say : Where is the money ?

· Pratap Reddy ( Apollo Hospital ) says : This will be a game changer

· R Sabesan ( Dr Agarwal group of Eye Hospital ) says : It will allow mid-sized healthcare players to invest and thereby improve the quality of healthcare in the country

· Shailaja Chandra ( Former Secretary at the Health Ministry ) says : Insurance companies could end up reaping the benefits of the health coverage scheme . There is a need for a regulatory mechanism to make sure they pay patient bills without delay

· Indranil Mukhopadhyay ( Asst Prof , Jindal University ) says : The allocation the government would need to pay for just the premiums is about Rs 1.2 lakh*crore and the country’s total spending on health is about Rs 1.3 lakh* crore. There is no clarity on how this will be rolled out and who will foot the bill - a plan that mirrors the confusion of the 2016 proposal . There has been barely any follow up action on the past UHC announcements

· Antony Jacob ( Apollo Munich Health Insurance ) says : The medical services sector is optimistic about the scheme leading to large-scale employment opportunities . It will help create several lakh new jobs as new healthcare facilities will come up in smaller districts and villages

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Sad Thing :

· No one has come up with a concrete proposal which says : Here is how we can make it work

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MY SUGGESTIONS :

· The scheme must cover

# Supply of Medicines / Medical Devices ( both , preventive and curative )

# Delivery of Services ( Diagnostic / Nursing / Hospitalization )

# Pregnancy / Delivery related medicines / investigations / hospitalization

Prices for each / all of these must be fixed and published , not only on the web

site of the Health Ministry but at ALL places where medicines or services are

getting delivered

· Each eligible family member to be issued a “ Ayushman Card “ ( linked to Aadhar ID )

Ayushman card will have inbuilt memory capacity to store that person’s health data from “ Cradle to Grave “ ( Privacy advocate need not worry ! )

All the Health Data of all 50 crore beneficiaries to be stored on a Central Server for BIG DATA analysis , in order to “ Predict “ WHO might become susceptible to WHICH ailment and WHEN

As an alternative , a GPS enabled / NFC capable Smart Phone pre-loaded with AYUSHMAN MOBILE APP , could be considered to replace the card

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· Ayushman Eco System shall consist of :

# 50 crore poor beneficiaries

# All Medical Practitioners of India ( Allopathic - Ayurvedic – Homeopathic )

# All Medical Shops of India ( including E – Pharmacies )

# All Nursing Homes / Hospitals / Diagnostic Centres / Health Centres etc

# All Pharma Companies

# Health Ministry

# All India Medical Association

# All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists ( AIOCD )

# Drug Controller General of India

# All Medical Colleges / Medical Research Centres

# Any other entity which I might have missed out

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· The Ayushman Eco System shall be built around the BLOCK-CHAIN technology , which will be the main operating system for implementation of the AYUSHMAN PROCESSES , described in my following earlier blogs ( sent as emails to Cabinet Ministers / Niti Aayog )

As to the relevance of BLOCKCHAIN technology to a Healthcare Eco-System , read :

BlockchainTechnology Could Revolutionize Health

Care

https://www.investopedia.com/news/blockchain-tech-could-restructure-health-care/

Consulting firm Deloitte believes that "blockchain technology has the potential to transform healthcare, placing the patient at the center of the healthcare ecosystem and increasing the security, privacy, and interoperability of health data."

Medicalchain, on the other hand, uses blockchain technology to store and share health records securely, allowing for easy and safe transfer of information between providers and patients.

The Bounty of Big Data [ 30 April 2016 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-bounty-of-big-data.html

3 D -Digital Delivery of Drugs ? [ 11 Oct 2015 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/10/3-d-digital-delivery-of-drugs.html

Online Sale of Medicines ? [ 24 Dec 2016 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/12/online-sale-of-medicines.html

Health Care through Mobile ? [ 24 Nov 2016 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/11/health-care-through-mobile.html

A Mobile App named " BANMALI " [ 16 Sept 2016 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-mobile-app-named-banmali.html

BANMALI is the TOTAL SOLUTION [ 14 Nov 2016 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/11/banmali-is-total-solution.html

Saving 1.2 million Kids [ 29 June 2016 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/06/saving-12-million-kids.html

Can Akshay Patra Banish Malnutrition ? [ 05 June 2017 ]

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/06/can-akshay-patra-banish-malnutrition.html

PROCESS :

· Beneficiary getting AYUSHMAN Card after authentication from nearest Health Centre

· Beneficiary approaching any Registered Medical Practitioner ( RMP ) for ailment

· RMP entering Diagnosis / Prescription in Mobile App ( or in Card using Card Reader )

· Beneficiary presenting card at the premises of delivery of Medicines / Devices / Services as prescribed by RMP

· Person delivering medicines / service , entering the details in Card and delivering service ( including no of items / unit price / GST etc )

· Beneficiary “ sign off “ ( in Card ) for having received medicine / service

· Person delivering service ( or medicine ) , uploading data on Central Server of Health Ministry

· Health Ministry updating PATIENT HISTORY in the database and effecting DIGITAL PAYMENT to person delivering medicine / service [ DBT ]

· There will be NO CASH TRANSFER to a beneficiary ( to avoid fraud / fake cases )

HOW WILL THIS BE A GAME CHANGER ?

· If meticulously designed and aggressively / speedily implemented as outlined above , AYUSHMAN has the potential to,

# Save millions of premature deaths annually

# Save billions of man-hours lost due to preventable illnesses

# Bring down the cost of Healthcare / Medicines / Services

# Vastly improve the quality of life for 50 crore persons

# Invigorate many industries and generate huge employment

# Enable BJP to return to 2019 Lok Sabha with 400 + seats

For NDA Ministers and Bureaucrats who have successfully carried out big ticket reforms such as De-Monetization / GST / Digital India / Bank Recapitalization etc, this is a worthy challenge

Let them not forget that the entire World is watching this INNOVATIVE SOCIAL SECURITY experiment

02 Feb 2018

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs

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Tech-enabled Healthcare system : 4 years in making ?

[ 27 May 2022 ]

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Added on 01 JUNE 2022 :

For real-time update, NHA launches online public dashboard for Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

{ Eco Times / 31 May 2022 } ..

The dashboard captures data related to the number of ABHA generated, the number of healthcare professionals like doctors, nurses etc registered. and Digital Health records linked with ABHA

The dashboard also has granular details in relation to number of health facilities like hospitals, laboratories etc registered on a daily basis a well as cumulative till date

It further said that partner-wise data of ABHA generation created and Digital Health records liked are made available on the dashboard in real time

As per the Dashboard , as on 30 May 2022,

# the total number of ABHA ( earlier known as Health ID ), created is..... 22.1 Crore

# over 16.6 thousand healthcare professionals have registered in the HPR

# over 69.4 thousand health facilities have registered in the HFR

# over 1.8 lakh Health Records already linked by users

# and the recently revamped ABHA app has crossed 5.1 lakh downloads

The Health Ministry said all the stakeholders can easily access the ABDM public dashboard from the ABDM website

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Added on 28 July 2023 :

Government to launch Ayushman Bhav to achieve 100 per cent coverage of health schemes

Extract :

The Union health ministry is planning to launch ‘Ayushman Bhav’ programme to ensure optimum delivery of all state-run health schemes to every intended beneficiary, including those in the last mile.Ayushman Apke Dwar 3.0, Ayushman Sabha, Ayushman Mela and Ayushman Gram are some of the activities planned under the programme, official sources told a news agency.

“The aim of the campaign is to ensure comprehensive and saturation coverage of all health schemes so that every eligible beneficiary is able to avail their benefits,” an official source said.

Ayushman Apke Dwar 1 and 2 drives have been conducted successfully. Under the Ayushman Apke Dwar 3.0, an intensive drive will begin from August 1 to ensure full saturation, the sources said.

Ayushman Sabha will be a village-level campaign led by the village health, sanitation and nutrition committee to ensure the benefits of all the health schemes of the central and state governments reach the intended beneficiaries, they said.

These will also enhance awareness about the importance of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (PMJAY) health insurance scheme cards and their distribution and generating Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA) numbers, they said.

The campaign will also help in making people aware about the importance of utilising screening services for non-communicable diseases (NCD) and sickle cell disease through health and wellness centres and also about communicable diseases such as elimination of tuberculosis, among others.

“These village sabhas will also help in generating awareness about reproductive and child health issues, immunisation, nutrition and anaemia. Besides, they will foster social accountability of the health systems to the community to express their issues and concerns related to the health services provided at AB-HWCs,” an official source explained.

Ayushman Sabhas will be organised in each village where PMJAY cards will be distributed and information provided about PMJAY empaneled hospitals in the area and what all packages of treatments can be availed under the scheme.

The third pillar of Ayushman Bhav programme — Ayushman Mela — will be held at the level of Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs). As part of it, medical camps will also be organised at medical colleges at community health centre level.

“There are 705 medical colleges, both in public and private sector. So each medical college may organise around 50 medical camps annually and target at least 300-400 OPD treatments.

“All medical colleges together may be able to give treatment to at least 1.25-1.5 crore patients per every in camo mode at community health centres,” the source said

These will also be used for routine immunisation, NCD screening, mental healthcare, elderly care services, among others.

They can be conducted on a weekly basis.

“The objective is to reach those people who are excluded from speciality health services and make available specialty medical services up to block level which have a shortage of specialist doctors,” the official source elaborated.

The fourth pillar Ayushman gram is envisaged to achieve 100 per cent coverage of PMJAY card distribution, ABHA id generation, immunisation coverage, NCD screening, among others.

“Whichever village will be able to saturate all the schemes, it will be declared an Ayushman gram and also will be given a certificate,” the source said.

Thursday, 1 February 2018

Modicare : A Game Changer