Affordable Quality Health, the organization under which InOrder is set up, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Health Authority in August, 2022. The partnership aims to establish collaboration in the areas of implementation research, capacity building, technical support, stakeholder advocacy, and public awareness under government initiatives including the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY).
National Health Authority (NHA) is the apex body responsible for implementing India’s flagship public health insurance scheme called Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana. It has been entrusted with the role of designing the strategy, building technological infrastructure and implementing the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission to create a National Digital Health Eco-system. It is leading the implementation for ABDM in coordination with different ministries/departments of the Government of India, State Governments, and private sector/civil society organizations.
Under the partnership, NHA and AQH will engage in activities aimed at knowledge sharing, capacity building, research, technology, stakeholder advocacy, and creating awareness on digital health, health insurance, healthcare services, among others. Specifically, the activities under the MoU include creating and conducting online training programs on ABDM for key health workers and administrators, creation of informative and educational content, dissemination of this content, and implementation research of ongoing work, among others.
Present at the MoU siging were Dr. RS Sharma, CEO NHA, Dr. Praveen Gedam, Addnl CEO, NHA, Dr. Kameshwar Rao, Executive Director, NHA, Dr. Vikram Pagaria, Joint Director, NHA, Dr Krishna Reddy Nallamlla, Regional Director (South Asia) ACCESS Health International, Mr Maulik Chokshi, Deputy Country Director (Technical) ACCCESS Health, and Ms Komal Malhotra, Project Head, Digital Health, ACCESS Health.
National Health Authority is the successor of the National Health Agency, which was functioning as a registered society since May 2018. Affordable Quality Health (AQH) is a not-for-profit organization. It established ‘InOrder- The Health Systems Institute’ with a core purpose to ‘Strengthen Systems to Secure Health’. Its work focuses on five health subsystems, namely Provider, Payer, Public Health, Governance, and Health Information systems. It supports health systems through five work streams, namely Research, Capacity Building, Technical Support & Advisory, Stakeholder Advocacy, and Public Awareness. It has strategic partnerships with various academic institutions, think tanks, foundations, and government departments to further its objectives.