New Leadership Takes Hold at Telangana’s Aarogyasri Health Care Trust

ACCESS Health International and the Safe Care, Saving Lives Quality Improvement Collaborative are delighted to welcome Dr. K Manohar as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Government of Telangana Aarogyasri Health Care Trust. Dr. Manohar is CEO with Full Additional Charge, meaning that he takes on his work with the Trust in addition to his fulltime work as Director of Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad. We at Safe Care, Saving Lives are delighted that Dr. Manohar will be at the helm of the Trust for the foreseeable future, as his leadership will help maintain and grow the influence and impact of the insurance program. 

The success of the Safe Care, Saving Lives program is intrinsically linked to the success and influence of the Aarogyasri Health Care Trust. All of the Safe Care, Saving Lives healthcare facilities have been selected because they are empaneled with the public health insurance programs in Telangana and in Andhra Pradesh. This approach is what makes the Safe Care, Saving Lives program so unique. By working closely with the public health insurance provider, Aarogyasri Health Care Trust, Safe Care, Saving Lives is able to create lasting institutional change, improving the quality of care across the entire healthcare market and strengthening the government’s leading role in ongoing quality improvement. Through our partnership, we have introduced Quality Improvement Collaboratives into the health system. These Collaboratives are made up of healthcare providers who are trained to analyze the causes of newborn deaths, and identify and test solutions. Teams of providers from different hospitals and clinics share ideas and compare results, inspiring one another to improve performance.

Thanks to our close relationship with Aarogyasri, we have the potential to save tens of thousands of newborn lives, reducing stillbirths and neonatal deaths by one quarter over a four year period. Our work with Dr. Manohar goes back to 2013 and the very beginnings of the Safe Care, Saving Lives program. Dr. Manohar was in charge of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital as Medical Superintendent with Full Additional Charge when it first became a member of the Safe Care, Saving Lives program. We are tremendously grateful to Dr. Manohar and our partners at Aarogyasri for their ongoing support and leadership.