New Delhi – Piramal Swasthya, the primary healthcare initiative of Piramal Foundation, operating nationally serves over 1 million beneficiaries every month as of (31 Mar 2019), Vishal Phanse, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Piramal Swasthya told India CSR.
Piramal Swasthya is a non-profit organisation and an initiative of Piramal Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the globally diversified business conglomerate – Piramal Group.
Piramal Swasthya focuses on bringing in transformation through operational excellence, consistent research and innovation, focus on impact and advocacy and helping India achieve its sustainable development goals (SDG) targets.
Establishing platforms
Today, Piramal Swasthya’s Operational Wing partners with the governments and compliments their efforts through its large-scale operations to end preventable deaths with a focus on maternal mortality and infant mortalities and Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) like Diabetes, Hypertension and Cancer.
Piramal Swasthya has a round-the-clock Health Information Helpline (HIHL) to counsel people on minor ailments. The helpline is even supporting several government programmes like the ‘Mother and Child Tracking System’ (MCTS) and HIV/AIDs counselling.
“The patients can avail health and medical information, counselling services, directory information and can even lodge complaints against any Public Health facility”, Phanse said.
Through a result-based monitoring approach, Piramal Swasthya upholds accountability and transparency in ensuring that its programmes are impact focused.
Piramal Swasthya’s tele-medicine service focuses on delivering the most accessible and affordable care by providing high-quality specialists with an electronic health record of each patient. It virtually connects doctors to patients and reduces the need for highly-skilled health workers where they are scarce.
Piramal Swasthya’s another service delivery platform – the Community Outreach Programme (COP) provides Fixed Day Mobile Outreach Services with the help of 450+ Mobile Medical units. The medical units, equipped with state-of-the-art equipments are providing healthcare services in the most backward areas in 14 States.
Innovations for sustainable impact
Primary Healthcare services are accessible, affordable and available at the last mile. Piramal Swasthya’s Innovations Wing has been able to co-create models with key partners including all the relevant government ministries to design and implement at scale.
Progression of Piramal Swasthya
Strengthening the health system and ensuring equilibrium between demand and supply in the primary healthcare ecosystem worked upon by Piramal Swasthya’s Advisory Wing which works closely with NITI Aayog and Thought Leaders in Aspirational Districts of India.
“The Piramal Swasthya team has collaborated with National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) to improve healthcare and nutrition indicators across 25 districts in seven states viz Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra”, Phanse said.
“Swasthya has also deployed a team of over 350 public health professionals, technical experts and data analysts in addition to a work force of over 4000 frontline health workers and doctors, that will work across these aspirational districts to bring about the desired transformation”, he added.
The solutions provided to mitigate issues of accessibility, availability and affordability in remote areas, and also serve as a platform through which technology enabled quality healthcare services can be rendered and customized to fulfill specific needs of the society.
“Reach has always been a problem in India and the country often fairs poorly on the global index”, Phanse Said.
“Piramal Swasthya’s presence at the grassroot is the essence of the learnings that encompasses the beneficiary needs towards available, accessible and affordable quality healthcare services. Piramal Swasthya has incorporated these learnings in its high impact solutions with a combination of public health expertise, ability to harness data and technology as key enabler and the convening power to co-create sustainable models for national impact along with the thought leaders in the govt. development partners and corporate partners” he added.
Swasthya is designing a technology platform as a public good to enable the beneficiary to be in-charge of his own health through an integrated electronic medical record system. This system will be critical for the frontline health workers, supervisors, and the leadership at the block, district and state levels to empower them to take informed operational, systemic and clinical decisions.
The tribal platform once scaled across the tribal population in India by 2025 will significantly move the needle in the SDG targets of Maternity Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortility Rate (IMR) of India” Phanse said.
