ACCESS Health Digital Academy: Developing “Peopleware”

Training a world class health informatics workforce for India Recognizing the growing need for trained professionals in the digital health space, ACCESS Health Digital recently launched the ACCESS Health Digital Academy: DIGITAL HEALTH 101, which will work towards building capacity in this area. The Academy focusses on transforming and enhancing HealthTech crossover skills in the current and future healthcare workforce by bringing technical institutes, management institutes, and medical colleges together under the same umbrella. Currently, the AHD Academy has partnered with the IIHMR University, IIHMR Delhi, Chitkara University, and Santosh University. A growing interest in the partner institutes is being seen as having the potential to begin an industry-academia relationship where outgoing students can liaise with AHD to complete an internship program. This post-study practicum training is aimed to train and prepare the students for real-world complexities and problem-solving. As part of this initiative, ACCESS Health Digital has published in the open source, a range of Webinar based material categorized under Basic, Specialist, Expert, and master's level. Specific course-related content has been developed by the AHD team. Partner-Institutes are using these contents created by AHD in the areas of Digital Health, and related public health policies for delivering and teaching the courses. The training material pertains to NDHB, Healthcare Standards, Healthcare IT Systems design, Electronic Health Record (EHR), and ICT systems Infrastructure that help improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery and health insurance. The need for a digital health academy As digital health becomes more prevalent, literacy in information and communication technologies and access to technology define the "digital determinants of health". With the adoption of the resolution WHA66.24 by the World Health Assembly in 2013, the World Health Organization paved the way for massive digital transformation in the global health space. With the adoption and emergence of the National Digital Health Ecosystem [NDHE] in India, the stage is set for the world's biggest healthcare overhaul.  The National digital health initiatives underscore the need to ground digital foundations within national strategies and highlights the need to work with different sectors and stakeholders together at all levels. This has translated into the need for cross-over skilled workforce and professionals in the field of health information and technology. With a growing demand for digital healthcare professionals, having clinicians, nurses, and public health professionals skilled in bringing about healthcare digital transformation will be essential to any organization. Capacity building interventions have taken a variety of forms including providing technical assistance, in-depth consultations, in-person training/coaching/mentoring sessions, Train-the-Trainer programs, online learning options such as webinars, and skills-based online courses. A holistic approach needs to be considered for capacity building while aiming for sustained excellence that will drive adoption and development.

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ACCESS Health Partners with SEWA: Supporting Women in the Informal Economy

The Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and ACCESS Health International have come together in a bid to assess the current status of and redesign the existing components of the SEWA model, through innovative approaches to care delivery for low-income populations. SEWA is an organization of informal women workforce that works to create alternatives for women in all spheres of life. SEWA is a trade union started by women workers in Gujarat in 1972. It was born out of the Textile Labor Association and has become one of the largest and oldest unions of textile workers. The key dimensions of the partnership include costing of noncommunicable disease services, distribution, skill-mix, and motivation of human resources, health financing from the patient perspective, digital tools for care management, systems for monitoring and evaluation, and options for ensuring financial sustainability. ACCESS Health will conduct a situation analysis followed by supporting the design and implementation of innovations to the SEWA model. Informal women workers constitute about 94 percent of the female labour force in India. They struggle for social security and overall protection. As part of their mission to provide holistic social security and health benefits, SEWA launched Swasth Samuday Program for reducing mortality and morbidity associated with NCDs in low income communities. Besides deterrents to accessibility and affordability of health care, there are challenges like the lack of awareness about the quality of care and importance of prevention and diagnosing noncommunicable diseases besides treatment. Rural women also do not have access to high quality clinical care and the public and private health systems are not adequate enough in terms of service delivery. SEWA has been recognized globally for its work and has expanded to several states in India. SEWA's core mission is to reach vulnerable women in the informal economy through its member institutions.

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ACCESS Health Selected for a Study of Primary Healthcare in Andhra Pradesh

Quality Healthcare Access, which is a 100 percent subsidiary of ACCESS Health International, signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project, to conduct a baseline assessment of 150 sub-centers, which in due course, will be converted to Health and Wellness Centers. The key objectives of the study include understanding the inputs and outputs, and the access to these facilities, with a focus on maternal and child health and non-communicable diseases. Simultaneously, ACCESS Health India will also be conducting a household survey of 350 households. This study will assess the current status of out-of-pocket spending and health-seeking behavior of families in Andhra Pradesh, predominantly with regards to maternal and child health, and in the management of noncommunicable diseases. Senior Health Economist Dr. Alka Parikh, Dean of Research (Social Sciences) and Director of Amity Institute of Liberal Arts at Amity University will be the principal investigator of the study. The study will focus on the tribal and rural areas of all the districts in Andhra Pradesh. ACCESS Health India received this opportunity by participating in a competitive bidding process. 

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Report Release: Assessment of the Accessibility of Commercial Insurance in China for People with Disabilities Report

On March 26, 2021, the “Assessment of the Accessibility of Commercial Insurance in China for People with Disabilities” report release event was officially held in Beijing. The report conference was jointly launched by Yibaojihua, ACCESS Health China, and the Beijing AE Foundation. Xu Yue, Assistant Director of ASK Startup Alliance, was the moderator for the event. Guests from academic institutions, insurance companies, and disability service agencies joined the event. By developing insurance solutions for people with disabilities, we hope to help strengthen the development of the multi-layered medical security systems and reduce the vulnerability of people with disabilities, as well as the burden for their families. This is an important initiative with great social value in the development of China’s inclusive financial sector and the welfare of people with disabilities. With the hope to unite key stakeholders and to accelerate the promotion of more exchanges and collaboration in serving the health and financial needs of people with disabilities, the organizers officially announced the launch of the “China Health and Financial Security Service Platform for People with Disabilities.” The Platform is funded by the Beijing Ginkgo Public Welfare Foundation and will operate on a pro bono basis to provide continuous professional support and assistance to ones in need.  

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“Health System Six-Lesson Series” Hosted By ACCESS Health China Comes To An End

The ACCESS Health China team has organized a six-lesson series of Health System course, covering the national planning of health systems, China’s health system, health system reform, Health China 2030, and the value of healthcare under the existing health system. There is a lack of systematic courses that focuses on health systems in China. Since the launch of the course, we have received tremendous interest from our partners and clients. We hope to open this course to public audiences in due time. Click here for a summary of the sixth lesson in Chinese. (The link also connects to the previous 5 lessons.)

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Report Release: Disease Burden and Health-related Quality of Life Survey on Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) Patients in China

The Report Disease Burden and Health-related Quality of Life Survey on Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) Patients in China was formally published in Hangzhou on March 27th. ACCESS Health China’s Research and Consultation team participated in the writing of this report. It is the first social research on LHON in China. Through both quantitative and qualitative research, the team conducted a preliminary study on the survival status of LHON patients in China. The report also looked at the global LHON epidemiological research, diagnosis and treatment paths, innovative drug research and development, and admission systems. Through this research, we proposed relevant policy recommendations, with the hope to fundamentally improve the lives of China's LHON patients, and to protect the rights of the visually impaired.

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InOrder Institute and Chitkara University partner to create a Health Informatics course for the MBA Healthcare program

The InOrder Institute for Health Systems Strengthening and Chitakara University are working together to introduce a Health informatics course for the MBA Healthcare program of Chitkara University. The eight-week course will be will commence in March 2021. The course is designed to cover practical aspects of the healthcare IT industry including clinical information systems, bioinformatics, standards, and regulatory aspects, and advanced systems design such as the cloud and IoT (Internet of things). Faculty from Chitkara and InOrder with extensive experience in health technology product design and standards will deliver the course to the students.

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ACCESS Health Philippines: The Welfare of Frontliners at the Forefront

Manila, Philippines-ACCESS Health International successfully organized an online orientation to officially kick off their national survey activities for the study entitled, "Determining the Implementation Status of Benefits under the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers in the Philippines." Attended by over 100 municipal and city health doctors, nurses, and administrative personnel, the online orientation aimed to formally introduce the national survey and provide guidance on navigating through the online survey process and answering the online questionnaire. Funded by the Department of Health in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology under the Advancing Health through Evidence-Assisted Decisions with Health Policy and Systems Research (AHEAD-HPSR) Program, the study aims to assess the overall implementation status of the benefits enshrined under the Republic Act No. 7305 of 1994. On the municipal/ city level, the study further endeavors to identify the enabling and hindering factors of why the policy has been implemented. Apart from policy briefs and technical reports, ACCESS Health International will develop an assessment tool as an end-product that the DOH can use to evaluate the LGUs in implementing the Magna Carta policy.

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ACCESS Health and SafeCare Join Forces To Improve Healthcare in India

ACCESS Health has teamed up with SafeCare, a standards based, digital quality improvement platform, to improve the quality of care in India. In this international partnership, ACCESS Health will help facilities implement the standards-based methodology developed by SafeCare that empowers healthcare providers to measure, monitor, and improve the quality of their services. Working towards improving healthcare quality standards and strengthening health systems in India, ACCESS Health International constantly strives to bring innovative quality tools and programs in the Indian healthcare space. SafeCare, with experience in sub-Saharan Africa, is a globally renowned company which provides innovative healthcare standards, surveyor training, and grading systems for measuring the quality of care. PharmAccess Foundation's SafeCare platform will further contribute to the efforts of ACCESS Health in building strong and high quality healthcare services in the county. The SafeCare standards are accredited by the International Society for Quality in Health Care External Evaluation Association (IIEA). The PharmAccessFoundation manages and uses the SafeCare brand, standards, tools and methodologyfor quality improvement programs and assessment and certification of healthcare providers. The SafeCare package offers an IIEA accredited, standards based, step-by-step approach towards improving the quality of healthcare services. The improvements are formally recognized through certification. Within the partnership, a model will be developed and a phased approach towards licensing the SafeCare methodology to ACCESS Health International will be adopted. The SafeCare standards offer a clear and objective view of a facility's scale, scope, and quality of clinical services. They provide a detailed improvement plan to guide facilities on their quality improvement journey. Data can be used for benchmarking, performance monitoring, and informed decision making for both public and private healthcare facilities. The data collection and reporting system has been fully digitalized. This is done through mobile phones and central databases and reporting tools that are easily accessible for informed decision making by all stakeholders. Why this partnership? In the last decade, India has made big strides in providing better access to healthcare for its 1 billionplus citizens. However, the quality of that care remains a key challenge in reaching universal healthcoverage by 2030, a globally agreed goal of the United Nations. According to a 2016 Lancet report, poor quality of care leads to almost twice as many deaths thaninsufficient access to healthcare, 1.6 million deaths compared to 838,000 respectively It is thuscrucial to address both these issues. However, there is a lack of certification and accreditation bodies offering local solutions for emergingmarkets. How, for example, can a rural clinic in India meet the same requirements as a city hospital,given the differences in resources and training? As a result of this weak regulatory framework, patients and payers of health care face uncertaintyregarding the availability and quality of service. In turn, this hampers health sector investments aspatients are not willing to prepay for healthcare through insurance. More about the SafeCare Standards The SafeCare standards provide an objective, holistic view of medical and non-medical service provision of hospitals and laboratories, transparent and achievable quality improvement goals and a staged motivating and monitoring system. The tools are online and mobile centric. Health professionals can benefit from an interactive, real-time quality management and monitoring platform that aids informed decision making and hence better health outcomes. It also standardizes the methodology of measurement across healthcare facilities. Patients know what quality of care to expect at a certain facility, funders have data to assess the medical, financial, and accountability risks when considering long-term investments and insurance companies can see which providers their customers use to give better value for money. PharmAccess mobilizes public and private resources for the benefit of doctors and patients through health insurance, loans to doctors, clinical standards and quality improvements, private investments, and operational research. In conclusion, at a policy level, data on quality and risks assist the government in its choices about how to best allocate its scarce resources. In this respect, ACCESS Health International and SafeCare can truly transform the quality landscape in India to create sustainable improvement and provide health for all.

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INSIGHT COVID-19: International Public Health Management Training Program

Together with China Primary Healthcare Foundation, ACCESS Health China co-organized a two-month training program on public health management addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, covering topics such as the concept of public health, hospital infection, new technology, new vaccine, doctor-patient relationship during the pandemic, and global collaboration against the pandemic. Many experts and leaders in public health, including Academic Zhu CHEN, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Party and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Dr. Li GAO, Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in China; Academic Nanshan ZHONG, Leader of the Chinese National Expert Team against COVID-19; Academic Lanjuan LI, Member of the Expert Team; and Zunyou WU, Chief Scientist of Chinese National Center for Disease Control and Prevention gave insightful sharing and relevant case studies throughout the program. The training contained 20 live-stream sessions over 8 weeks, providing free online public health courses for hospital administrators, doctors, staffs of disease control departments and medical students.

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