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Under the Ayushman Bharat Program, the digital “National NCD Portal launched by the Ministry of Health & Family welfare, Government of India with support from its technical partner Dell, aims to facilitate the primary care activities such as screening of all patients over 30 years of age, for hypertension, diabetes, and cancer (oral, breast and cervical), initiation of treatment, referrals to secondary and tertiary centres for diagnosis, treatment and management, and maintenance of the continuity of care, as patients are back to the communities (villages). The National NCD Portal was envisaged to be a platform to allow the medical officer in-charge of a rural Primary Health Centre (PHC manager) and other health system officials to track every last non-communicable disease (NCD) patient on a regular basis, identify patients who have dropped out early in the course of care, and take action to link them back to care pathways, as well as intervene in those cases who have been lost to follow-up (or not seeking care). The National NCD Portal includes comprehensive workplans and dashboards to facilitate the same, including through the support of a network of community health workers (ASHAs) to follow-up with patients in their respective villages. The PHC managers are supposed to use the digital solution and achieve optimum screening, treatment, referral, and follow-up rates. However, the challenges in the adoption of this digital solution and the consequent association with its usage for patient screening, support, tracking and linkage to care is a critical piece that has not been explored adequately in India.
Project EVALAUTE will attempt to bridge this gap through a mixed-methods study. The study will involve qualitative and quantitative data collection to understand the challenges faced by medical officers, Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) and staff nurses (SNs) in the adoption and usage of the portal. We will use a package of research tools in our project including in-depth interviews, portal-usage surveys, health facility readiness surveys and qualitative direct observations of portal use. Based on the data collected and analysed, we will be able to frame recommendations for the health system through this study to improve the adoption of the digital National NCD Portal.
1 Currently the study is in formative phase and the study protocol will be finalised following the Framework Harmonisation Workshop organised by WHO-HPSR in late May,2023. This workshop will aim to develop collective agreement on the core themes and questions to be addressed in each of the selected research proposals (one of which is ours). A framework will be developed in which common questions to be addressed across all research protocols will be identified, context specific questions that are unique to particular contexts will be enlisted, and standards for direct and analytic generalizability of findings will be established. Subsequent to this workshop, the study team will submit the application for IRB review.
2. A two-day Framework Harmonization Workshop was organized by the Alliance for Health Policy and System Research and the Department of Digital Health and innovations, WHO in Tunis, Tunisia on 24 & 25th May, 2023. Ten research teams from different countries presented their Study proposals, identified commonalities and exchanged ideas and knowledge. The workshop aimed to generate solutions on the integration of Digital Health Interventions on health system among policy- and decision-makers at the state as well as at the country level.
3. EVALUATE Project of Sangath Bhopal, as a part of all the Digital Health Interventions Projects supported by other countries and funded by Alliance for Health Policy and System Research and the Department of Digital Health and innovations, WHO, is featured in their news report.
https://ahpsr.who.int/newsroom/news/item/04-07-2023-decoding-digital-health-understanding-how-digital-innovations-are-strengthening-health-systems
For further details please write to us at contactus@sangath.in
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