DIISHA : future Of Healthcare
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Digital Innovations & Interventions for Sustainable Healthtech Action: dIISHA
The term DIISHA stands for Digital Innovations & Interventions for Sustainable Healthtech Action. This pilot is an initiative towards improving the rural healthcare sector of India and aims to upgrade the skills of frontline health workers like Ashas. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the statistics intended to showcase that the death rate in rural areas was much less as compared to urban areas. This is because Asha workers have been simultaneously helping the people to understand what precautions are required to curb their health situation since the presence of doctors is very rare. With the help of DIISHA, we will release a digital platform for frontline health workers using which they will physically complete online form filling of at least 30 people in a single day and create an ABHA ID for them. The information being stored will be further evaluated by team DIISHA and the process of screening and testing of population will begin. Digitization of healthcare staff will have a positive impact on the medical sector. Moreover, all the Ashas will be provided with smartphones and tablets so that they can operate with ease and proper training will be given to them for smooth workflow.
Intent
Honorable Prime Minister, on several occasions, has underlined the government’s strong determination to strengthen primary healthcare in the country and address adverse health indicators such as high infant and maternal mortality rates. In her last budget in the current Lok Sabha term before next general elections in 2024, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced various provisions for the healthcare sector under the central government’s Inclusive Development agenda and has increased government healthcare spending to 2.1 percent of GDP in 2023. Every year, nearly 25% of global Day 1 new-born deaths occur in India and about 50,000 pregnant women die during pregnancy or post-delivery. Since there is a severe dearth of trained physicians in remote villages, most of the patient care is provided by auxiliary nursing midwives (ANMs) and accredited social health activists (ASHAs). Currently, around 9,00,000 ASHA workers in the country & most have limited training to screen critical communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Content
Pursuant to the philosophy ingrained, DIISHA has been designed to demonstrate technical & commercial viability when best available technology/ies, products, and services are rolled out as a framework for improving current healthcare ecosystem thus aligning with the Honourable Prime Minister’s vision. The primary goal of the DIISHA initiative is to empower ASHAs, the grassroot health workers through technology integration; and generate qualitative & reliable health data that would enable India to meet SDG3 goals. It is structured to contribute to the clarion call given by the Central government for upgrading ASHA workers through training, mentoring, and digitally upskilling them. This initiative will also aid them in safely and securely capturing medical data on an easy-to-use and accessible digital platform, which will be utilised to provide a plethora of healthcare services to the rural population as also avail DST provisions of the healthcare system.
Extent
In addition to being available in various regional languages, the DIISHA digital platform has the ability to empower frontline workers in multiple states. It would be able to deliver quality, standardized prenatal care on the ground, diagnose high-risk patients, and assist state governments in ensuring direct benefit transfers to frontline staff. This initiative will play a key role towards achieving the government mission of conducting universal screenings, eliminating sickle cell anemia by 2047 and becoming Atma Nirbhar Bharat in healthcare by upgrading and modernizing ASHA workers. This initiative will also help India take a lead globally in healthcare and help achieve government’s vision of universal health, “Healthcare for all creatures’ and ‘One Earth One Health’.
DIISHA - Key Componets
