NITI Aayog has announced the development of 1.5lakh health and community centres under the Ayushman Bharat over the next four years to screen population for diseases including Hypertension, Diabetes, Breast and Cervical Cancer. The community centres will help the patients access higher level of delivery service system. The announcement was made at the Tech4Transformation 2.0 conclave held by the Tata Trusts on Wednesday.
The second edition of the Tata Trusts’ technology conclave brought together government representatives, industry leaders, innovators and philanthropists to discuss and debate the different ways in which technology can be adopted in initiatives for social impact.
Speaking about the upcoming health centres, Rakesh Ranjan, DDG (Evaluation) & Sr. Consultant, NITI Aayog, Govt. of India, said, “This is a very big initiative which will be achieved through green-field projects or by upgrading existing public health centres. We have already established 2,500 centres across the country of which 600 are in the 117 Aspirational Districts identified by NITI Aayog. The target is to set up 15, 000 such centres this year.”
Burzis Taraporevala, Senior Advisor, Tata Trusts, said, “Technology is transforming our lives and it is here to stay. Technology has long been applied in industry and businesses and it is important that the social sector also embrace it for effective implementation of social programmes and in measuring their outcomes.”
The conclave began with a discussion on ‘Technology for system strengthening – Is it a choice anymore’ moderated by Venkat Changavalli, Senior Advisor, Tata Trusts, Sanjay Deshmukh, Secretary for Medical Education, Govt. of India, Rupesh Goyal, Product Management and Strategic Initiatives in Healthcare Products and Platforms (HPP), Tata Consultancy Services, Pompy Sridhar, India Director, MSD for Mothers, Satish Sangameswaran, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Research Labs participated in the panel to discuss current challenges in the primary healthcare, Ayushman Bharat, Digital Nerve Centre, project ASMAN and collaborations for technology upscale.
The panel brought to light the need for greater collaboration, partnerships and institutionalization of processes to achieve scale and make it sustainable. The need for collection of quality data for improved analysis in the healthcare sector, including maternal and childcare was also highlighted during the discussion.
