PGI Initiates Study to Develop a Database of Cost for Health Care in India

By Tricitynews

Chandigarh 19^th May:- The School of Public Health, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) Chandigarh organized the1^st National workshop to train participants from 10 states of India on costing of health care services from May 16^th-19^th, 2018 in collaboration with Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Prof. Rajesh Kumar, Dean (Academics) at PGIMER, Chandigarh inaugurated the workshop and highlighted the importance of information on cost for planning and evaluating health care services.

Dr. Shankar Prinja, Additional Professor of Health Economics at PGI and Principal Investigator of this study lauded the role of Department of Health Research who is providing the support for conduct of this large national level study which will involve more than 500 health facilities at all levels of health care delivery. The study will help in generation of cost of health care services which would be used by the Department of Health Research in Health Technology Assessment. In addition, the evidence would be useful for Government of India in setting the provider reimbursement rates under National Health Protection Scheme. The purpose of this workshop was to sensitize the policy makers, program managers, academicians and researchers on how to do costing of health care services from health system perspective. A total of thirty senior researchers and academicians from leading organizations and medical colleges of the country such as Department of Health and Research (DHR), New Delhi; TISS Mumbai, MCC Madras; KGMU, Lucknow; SMIMER, Gujarat; SMS Medical college, Jaipur; VSSMC (Burla),Odisha;  Seth GSMC and KEM Hospital,Mumbai were  part of this workshop.

The workshop holds significant importance in view of the Government of India’s recently announced National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), which would require adequate information on cost of various treatments/procedures for making informed choices and determining the package rates for the same.