In Latur, Maharashtra, we have piloted our first comprehensive health product. The product was launched in April 1st 2009 and enrollment of members is underway. The product aims to provide the following health services:

• Primary Health Services: Through CHWs at the village level and OPD and IPD facilities in Latur and Murud.
• Secondary and Tertiary Health Services: Through OPD, IPD facilities and multispeciality hospitals in Latur and Murud

Here we are working with a grassroots NGO, SSP (Swayam Sikshan Prayog), which has been involved in various disaster management, income generation and self-sufficiency programmes in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. We have started work in 12 villages around Latur, covering population of about 25,000 people.

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At the village level, a CHW has been identified. These CHWs are women who have been selected from the community itself and cover all the villages. These CHWs are called Arogya Sakhis. These sakhis were trained on basic preventive, diagnostic and referral services in November 2008. After that they have been receiving refresher training every 2 weeks.  These women play a crucial role in reaching out to the preventive care needs of the consumers in the village at present. In the future, we will be working at strengthening and broadening the role of these sakhis to make our health system accessible. [ Click here to download the study conducted by one of our interns to improve upon the current CHW model.]

As part of the system, network of providers consisting of 3 reputed hospitals, 4 diagonistic labs and 8 OPD doctors have been empanelled. Our customers have started accessing both the OPD network as well as the cashless hospitalisation facility in the IPD providers.

In Bangalore, we have partnered with a job placement agency, LabourNet to design, develop and pilot a comprehensive health system for semi-skilled labourers in the city. We have done a dipstick survey and designed the product suitable to the needs of the urban slum community in Bangalore, and identified a potential pilot site. LabourNet is an initiative addressing issues of workforce development in the construction sector. As part of this effort, they are offering a health management scheme in partnership with us to improve the overall health status of their members.

The scheme was launched in Bangalore on 15th June 2009 targeting about 45,000-50,000 low-income people and consumer enrolments are currently underway. The pilot locations in Bangalore are Vijinapura, Kothur, Doorvaninagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Battarhalli, TC Palya, Anandapura, Banaswadi, Maruthiseva Nagar, Lingarajpuram and Kammanahalli.

To make basic health services accessible to the members, a community nominated health worker (CHW) will be deployed in six of the pilot areas. The CHW is a woman who lives in the community and will be trained on preventive, diagnostic and referral services. The CHWs have been oriented to the scheme and their role. At present they are conducting a baseline survey, covering 10% of the households, to help us understand the current health status and measure our impact at the end of the year.

The empaneled network of our pilot has 5 hospitals for OPD, IPD and lab test services, 6 clinics for OPD services, 4 pharmacies and 1 exclusive diagnostic lab.

The Haryana Building and Other Construction Worker Welfare Board has commissioned our partner LabourNet (through its parent organization MAYA) to setup and run four Worker Facilitation Centres (WFCs) for unskilled and semi-skilled construction workers in the unorganized sector. These centres will act as focal points for delivery of various welfare activities focused on this vulnerable segment. The four centres are located in Manesar industrial area, urban Gurgaon and urban Faridabad. The infrastructure for the Manesar centre is ready, and for other centres is likely to be ready by September.

The services provided in these centres would include - training on safety and skill upgradation, creche for pre-school children, discounted quality health services, and facilitation of utilization of various benefits given by the Board to its members.

The centres will each have a clinic manned by a full time qualified doctor, and low-cost treatment for common ailments will be provided, including minor injuries. This, in addition to low-cost medications and laboratory tests will provide significant cost-savings to the members. We also envision providing antenatal care, immunization and other preventive services at the centre.

We are also facilitating the roll-out and utilization of an inpatient insurance scheme for these workers. This scheme is similar to the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, but focused on construction workers that are members of the Board. Our role is to help members understand the insurance benefits, and to ensure appropriate and hassle-free utilization of services by them.

A renowned international agency has appointed the joint consortium of Swasth India and our partner Swayam Shikshan Prayog to implement a comprehensive rural health eco-system for more than 100 villages (having a total population of more than 200,000) in Solapur and Osmanabad districts.

The components of the health eco-system would be similar to that of our other rural pilot in Latur, Maharashtra. The project was initiated in the 1st week of August 2009 and currently, the team is in the process of village identification, mobilisation of field-operations, pre-launch events and empanelment of secondary and tertiary care providers across the 2 districts.

Swasth India is working with Swayam Shikshan Prayog in 25 villages (having a total population of 40,000) of Washim district, as part of a project funded by Sir Ratan Tata Trust. The basic objective of this initiative is to provide basic outpatient care services to the low-income segments.

The key components of the project include - a Community Health Worker (CHW) in each village, a network of empanelled OPD doctors and diagnostic labs providing highly discounted services and good-quality, low-cost drugs through community-run pharmacies. Currently, the team is involved in selection and training of the CHWs.

Swasth India has entered into an agreement with a leading Micro Finance Institution (MFI) to help design and pilot a health-financing product-suite for its members. The goal of this product suite will be to ensure access to quality healthcare while reducing the basic cost and insulating the members from health financing shocks. Swasth India will help the MFI in the pilot and demonstrate this suite across 3 geographies over the next one year. Currently, the pilot geographies and product designs are being researched on.

ICTPH is going to pilot a nurse practitioner based outpatient delivery care model as a component of strategy to develop a full-fledged healthcare system. ICTPH and we have jointly developed an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system for recording member outpatient consultation details. This open-source browser based software is built on an existing system, clearhealth.