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Karnataka Public Health Policy draft has been approved by the dedicated Task Force. The various committees submitted the final draft to the Task Force, identifying 12 major issues of concern with an agenda for action to address each problem. These are upgrading patient care at primary health centres, improvement in infant-maternal healthcare, boost hospital infrastructure with information technology enabled environment and a Health Ombudsman to resolve complaints on healthcare providers. The final version is scheduled to be completed within the next two months.
The Task Force led by Dr Devi Shetty, chairman, Narayana Health Group has a broad mandate for the health policy with specific recommendations relating to training, capacity building and skill development, streamlining operations, mainstreaming of the Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy or Ayush for primary health care.
A suggestion to the policy that would be considered is the prescription audit recommended by Dr. BR Jagashetty, VP, Legal & Compliance, Medlife.com, former National Adviser (Drugs Control) to MoHFW, GoI and former Karnataka Drugs Controller.
“As part of the costing procedure, we have also identified 20 surgical procedures conducted commonly by government and private healthcare providers. These include cancer, cardiology, neurosurgery, orthopaedics interventions for which a costing mechanism is underway”, Dr. Alexander Thomas, member secretary, Task Force for Karnataka Public Health and executive director, Association of Healthcare Providers of India told Pharmabiz.
For the costing of procedures in cardiology, neurology, cancer and orthopaedics, IIM- Bangalore, NABH, CAHO (Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations) and AHPI and speciality associations are working together to put in place a price mechanism based on the surgical and therapeutic interventions at four hospitals from the government and private sector. The government hospitals are NIMHANS, Kidwai, Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology and Bowring & Lady Curzon. The private healthcare providers are Narayana Hrudayalaya, HCG, Manipal and Sparsh.
“It would take at least two months for us to present the final report which will then go to the government through the Knowledge Commission. The objective of the policy is to ensure equitable, high quality, affordable and transparent health services in the state utilizing latest technological advances. Although other states have a health policy in place, these guidelines from Karnataka are novel in concept, he added.
The policy is focusing on manpower development with comprehensive training programmes to streamline operations. The importance to adequate investment in technology to ensure speedy diagnosis, decrease patient waiting time to enable faster recovery are extended across the healthcare continuum. Adoption of information technology to mandate Electronic Medical Record (EMR) will provide a platform for comprehensive computerization and networking, said Dr. Thomas.
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