'Covid-19 fatality rate in India one of the lowest'

Launched as an open platform to source the most promising innovations that can help solve some of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana's (AB PM-JAY) key implementation challenges, AB PM-JAY Startup Grand Challenge, a National Health Authority initiative implemented in partnership with BIRAC and Startup India is a unique, first-of-its-kind opportunity for start-ups to be a critical participant and stakeholder in the largest government-funded health assurance scheme in the world. As on date nearly 1.37 crore people have availed themselves of free treatment worth around Rs. 16,931 crore at over 23,600 empanelled hospitals across the country under PM-JAY. For Covid- 19 alone, over 2.5 lakh people have taken the treatment and close to 5 lakh have availed themselves of the benefits of free testing. Dr. Vipul Aggarwal. Deputy CEO, National Health Authority talks to The Hans India's AKSHEEV THAKUR in a freewheeling interview.

Where do you think India stands in terms of curbing Covid-19?

India has come a long way in its battle with Covid-19. The past six months have been eye-opening in a sense. When the pandemic hit, our health infrastructure was not completely geared up. Today, our fatality rate is one of the lowest in the world, our hospitals have upgraded and are handling cases successfully and our testing facilities have also been augmented manifold to take up the challenge. For a developing country, the response so far has been great and we're trying to live up to expectations.

Healthcare in India has matured, especially in the manner it is managing infectious diseases. Our continuous learning and improvement in the last couple of months coupled with the way we have built capabilities will go a long way in helping us considerably reduce communicable diseases in the future. Also, I wish to call out the fact that, from working on upgrading our infra in the start of the pandemic, in a span of just 4 to 5 months, we are now fast becoming the second largest producer of PPE kits. This is a tremendous achievement for us.

Furthermore, we are also actively deploying the "Jan Andolan" campaign that enunciates on, "Wear Mask, Follow Physical Distancing, Maintain Hand Hygiene" to spread awareness among people about precautions against Covid-19. The media has further helped us to propel this health campaign, enabling us to reach out to the citizens of this country.

How many people across the country have been treated under AB PM JAY?

As on date nearly 1.37 crore people have utilized free treatment worth around Rs 16,931 crores at over 23,600 empanelled hospitals across the country under the scheme.

For Covid-19 alone, we have provided treatment to over 2.5 lakh people and close to 5 lakh people have availed the benefits of free testing. Via PM-JAY helpline (14555) and COVID helpline (1075), we have attended to over 27.5 Lakh calls in the last five-six months. We have also actively reached out to high-risk Covid potential beneficiaries to caution them and provide an advisory in case of symptoms.

Furthermore, NHA is actively coordinating with states to ensure that all eligible migrant workers get the benefits of AB PM-JAY. With the scheme's portability feature, they can avail treatment in any empanelled hospital irrespective of their state of origin. We also provided a Digi locker facility for those who were travelling from one state to another so that they would not have to avail their e-card physically.

Additionally, along with ensuring free and wide-reaching treatment for COVID-19, we have been actively working on educating and treating non-COVID patients suffering from chronic illnesses, but are not getting out for their treatments due to the fear of COVID infection. People having critical illness like cancer, chronic renal failure etc. also require continuous treatment, and for this purpose, we went for an aggressive hospital empanelment drive. We conducted awareness drives with our partners and tried to ensure that we had an adequate number of beds not just for COVID but non-COVID patients as well. Simultaneously, we have also tried to ensure that in times of Covid, the vulnerable groups like senior citizens, people suffering from long-term ailments and the economically weaker people "weren't being left out".

What are the challenges AB PM-JAY has been facing in bringing innovative solutions under the Ayushman Bharat Start-up Grand Challenge?

Well, we have had a few implementation challenges that needed innovative, progressive technology solutions. What better than reaching out to our own people to help get these solutions. The Indian Start-up community has consistently come up with far-reaching incredible innovations to make our country a better place and we wanted to source some promising innovations to help us do the following:

Ensure Quality of Care

Strengthen Fraud and Abuse control

Maximize pre and post- treatment engagement

Increase Beneficiary Awareness

Maximize capacity of health workforce

Reduce cost of services at

the point of care

Enhance the quality and security

of data

Have the challenges been resolved?

We have identified seven promising start-ups to help solve our implementation challenges. We would like to work closely with them and actively involve all stakeholders to resolve these issues.

The winners of Ayushman Bharat Startup Grand Challenge will be provided with end-to-end scale-up support through NHA's newly launched Market Access Program.

Could you tell me something about this?

The Market Access Programme (MAP) is all about bringing together healthcare providers, industry and knowledge leaders, and start-ups on a common platform to transform Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY.

This initiative focuses on high-potential, market-ready innovations with a set of systematic offerings, geared towards accelerating their road to adoption by healthcare providers. Through this programme, NHA provides systematic support structures via commercial validation pilots in public and private institutions, mentorship, acceleration of gap-filling prior to market access, non-dilutive capital to facilitate commercial validation studies, data intelligence and market support.

With MAP, disruptive innovations will now have an opportunity to directly access the Indian healthcare system and transform access, quality and affordability of healthcare.