The Government of Haryana, with support from Deloitte, today launched “Sanjeevani Pariyojana” (or ‘the life project’), a supervised, virtual home care initiative to help people quickly access health care for mild to moderate symptoms of Covid-19. The approach taken by the government of Haryana provides individuals with support and resources to manage their care at home including access to virtual triage, as well as COVID-19 field hospitals and inpatient facilities when deemed appropriate by state-trained medical staff. The Haryana-Deloitte collaboration builds on the state’s existing telemedicine and other virtual medical care services for home treatment.The programme, designed and supported by Deloitte, the Public Health Foundation of India (Dr. K. Srinath Reddy) and the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Haryana (Dr. Dhruva Chaudhry), is a critically important step in bringing much-needed medical care to the people who need it most, when and where they need it most. The pilot project will begin in the district of Karnal and may include a rollout to other affected areas shortly thereafter.Punit Renjen, Deloitte Global CEO, said: “Deloitte’s purpose is to make an impact that matters, and supporting the people of Haryana as the government delivers much needed medical care to Covid-19 patients is one of the most important impacts we can make. This collaboration will ‘expand the medical ward’ by delivering help to those who can recover at home, thereby preserving capacity at larger hospitals to treat the critically ill. This approach was designed to be ‘fit for purpose’ and may yield a model to enable broader health equity and access to critical health resources in the region and beyond.”“Sanjeevani Pariyojana” will also extend medical care to rural areas where awareness of the second wave of the virus and how to treat it remains low. With the right processes and care, officials believe it may be possible to support home convalescence for nearly 90 percent of patients.
The seven-point initiative will deliver the following:
1. Operating a remote command center for managing scarce resources including hospital beds, oxygen supply, ambulances, medical professionals, and monitoring at home patients
2. Augmenting existing call center capabilities with a COVID-19 hotline
3. Mobilizing 200 medical students to provide virtual health services for mild to moderate cases (with supervision). This includes distributing home care kits consisting of mask, oximeter, thermometer, and basic medicines
4. Deploying ALS ambulances and mobile pharmacies
5. Equipping a field hospital with medical equipment (e.g., oxygen concentrators) for surges in COVID-19 patients
6. Launching an awareness campaign on home care protocols and leveraging community workers (the ASHA network) to support in-home care
7. Developing a playbook for other geographies to replicate
These interrelated activities will enable the Government of Haryana to provide three-tiers of medical infrastructure to patients, including:
· Isolation wards at the village level and sub-center level and in some cases at Primary Health Care centers for patients with mild symptoms who are unable to isolate at home, staffed with a doctor (including Ayush doctors), nurses, and volunteers
· Community health centers or Field Hospitals at a Zila or sub-district level equipped with oxygen concentrators for patients with moderate symptoms in need of oxygen support
· Advanced medical centers at larger government, civil or private hospitals equipped with ICU facilities for critical patients
The “Sanjeevani Pariyojana” initiative will help transform the healthcare services provided to the people of Haryana. The ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers will continue to support primary front-line healthcare workers, informing citizens about the benefits of this new programme.
Deloitte’s support, which is being provided pro-bono towards the pilot, is built around open source technology, organizational practices, and playbooks which have been adopted by some of the top government agencies and medical institutions in India and elsewhere. These protocols enable governments to quickly scale the support required to address surges in COVID-19 patients.The learnings captured from these efforts will be used to drive new models of public health engagement and collaboration. In particular, reaching patients more quickly and empowering public health workers to collaborate with clinicians in new ways to deliver critical medical care.Said Renjen, “No one is safe from COVID until we are all safe from COVID. Helping India in its hour of need is not only the right thing to do to address the current surge of cases in India, but also to address health equity globally.”