The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) on Wednesday marked one crore treatments, worth approx. Rs. 13,412 Crore crossing. AB-PMJAY has crossed this milestone in less than 20 months since its launch on 23rd September 2018. In an official statement, the National Health Authority (NHA) said that over 21,565 hospitals have been empanelled. On this occasion, several initiatives including webinars and the launch of a WhatsApp chatbot for AB-PMJAY has been planned for tomorrow. On the occasion, PM Narendra Modi today interacted with the one-croreth beneficiary of the scheme. “During my official tours, I would interact with Ayushman Bharat beneficiaries. Sadly, that is not possible these days but I did have a great telephone interaction with Pooja Thapa from Meghalaya, the 1 croreth beneficiary. Here is what we discussed,” PM Modi tweeted.
Top states under AB-PMJAY: NHA said that Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, and Rajasthan have emerged as the top-performing states providing highest number of treatments under the scheme. Also, Orthopaedics, Cardiology, Cardio-thoracic and Vascular surgery, Radiation Oncology and Urology have remained as the top specialties under which treatment is sought.
Top treatment packages: The statement further said that treatment packages like single stent (medicated, inclusive of diagnostic angiogram), hip fracture internal fixation and rehabilitation, Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG), double stent (medicated, inclusive of diagnostic angiogram) and Total Knee Replacement have emerged as top tertiary procedures.
Commenting on the milestone, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare said, “This is a milestone achievement for Ayushman Bharat PMJAY scheme on providing 1 crore treatments to patients from the country’s poorest households since its launch less than two years ago. These treatments worth Rs 13,412 crore have been provided through a growing network of 21,565 public and private empanelled hospitals.”
“I convey my best wishes and gratitude to all the States who have ensured the scheme delivers on its promise especially in unprecedented times of Covid-19. Government of India is making persistent efforts to expand testing and make treatment of Covid-19 available for free to all 53 crore beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY, further strengthening Government of India’s resolve, scope and capability to move towards universal health coverage. Concerted efforts by every health worker and all empanelled hospitals have helped us achieve the 1 crore mark,” he added.
Arogya Dhara Webinars
To mark this milestone, the first edition of Arogya Dhara, a series of webinars created as an open platform for discussion on topical issues of public health, is being planned to be held on 21st May. The webinar titled “Ayushman Bharat: 1 crore treatments and beyond” will have keynote address by Dr. Harsh Vardhan. Dr. Indu Bhushan, CEO Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY will be making a presentation on the performance of AB PM-JAY and discuss the journey ahead. The webinar will be webcast through all official social media pages of National Health Authority and is open for all members of the general public.
Ask Ayushman’ chat bot on WhatsApp, Special e-cards
Tomorrow, Dr Harsh Vardhan is also expected to launch a ‘Ask Ayushman’ chat bot on WhatsApp, a 24*7 AI-enabled assistant that provides information on various aspect of the AB PM-JAY scheme such as its benefits, features, process of making an e-card, locating the nearest empanelled hospital, sharing feedback and the process of lodging a grievance.
One of the key features of the chat bot is that it is able to comprehend and respond in Hindi and English languages and it also provides text-to-speech feature for the users and can be universally used on all major social media platforms.
The Minister will also launch a hospital ranking dashboard which is a significant step to rank empanelled hospitals on the basis of beneficiaries’ feedback. The ranking will help NHA to take evidence-based decision-making for enhancing the quality measures and indicators of healthcare delivery across all empanelled facilities to further improve the beneficiaries experience.
Apart from the above, Hindi version of the Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY website will also be launched. The main objective of launching the website in Hindi is to effectively connect with the masses and to empower them with access to right information through a user-friendly medium
The Health Minister will also launch a special edition of the AB PM-JAY beneficiary e-card exhibiting the milestone of 1 crore hospital admissions.
Dr Indu Bhushan, CEO, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and NHA, “We are marking this milestone of 1 crore treatment under Ayushman Bharat PMJAY at a time when the whole country is reeling under the Covid pandemic. We have utilised this period to leverage our IT systems, expertise and network of private sector stakeholders to support the Government of India’s preparedness and response in the form of managing the national Covid helpline 1075 to conducting thousands of outbound calls to Covid positive patients and their families. We have also further strengthened our network of hospitals and service capabilities to ensure continued service delivery to non-Covid patients under the scheme.”
