26-4:11
Ayushman Bharat (AB) is an attempt to move from sectoral and segmented approach of health service delivery to a comprehensive range of health care service. Ayushman Bharat aims to undertake path breaking interventions to holistically address health (covering prevention, promotion and ambulatory care), at primary, secondary and tertiary level. Ayushman Bharat adopts a continuum of care approach, comprising of two inter-related components. The first component, pertains to creation of 1,50,000 Health and Wellness Centres which will bring health care closer to the homes of the people. These centres will provide Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC), covering both maternal and child health services and non-communicable diseases, including free essential drugs and
diagnostic services. The second component is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) which provides health protection cover to poor and vulnerable families for seeking secondary and tertiary care.
The National Health Policy, 2017 recommended strengthening the delivery of primary health care, through establishment of “Health and Wellness Centers” (HWCs) as the platform to deliver Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC) and called for a commitment of two thirds of the health budget to primary health care. In February 2018, the Government of India announced that, 1,50,000 Health & Wellness Centers would be created by transforming existing Sub Centers (SC) and Primary Health Centers (PHC) to deliver Comprehensive Primary Health care as one of the key components of ‘Ayushman Bharat’.
The HWC offers all its services and free ‘to all’ citizens and is the first point of contact for health care in the country. It focuses both on wellness and illness. The entire gamut of preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services are offered in an expanded range of services. The HWC continues to offer services related to Reproductive & Child Health, Care and Control of Communicable Diseases. In addition, HWC has initiated services pertaining to Non-Communicable diseases, Mental Health, ENT, Ophthalmology, Oral health, Geriatric and palliative health care and Emergency care which hitherto were
available only at the District level.
The first Ayushman Bharat- Health and Wellness centre (AB-HWC) was inaugurated by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri. Narendra Modi at Jangla, Bijapur in Chhattisgarh on 14th April 2018. AB- HWC Portal was launched by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) with support from National Health System and Resource Centre (NHSRC) and Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) in November 2018 to support states in planning and monitoring the progress of operationalizing HWCs.
The AB-HWC portal captures facility wise data on profile of HWCs and service utilization details at these health facilities. The real time update thus support states and districts to monitor their progress in operationalizing HWCs.
The AB-HWC Application is an extension of HWC Portal designed to address the challenge of variable quality of internet connectivity. As the application works in both online and offline mode and can be used on any existing smart phones, it would enable Community Health Officers and Medical Officers at HWCs to submit timely reports on daily and monthly basis. HWC Application has been designed keeping in view the user experience to ease the process of data entry and also enable users to self-monitor their progress on real time basis.
