Accelerating The Transformation To High Quality Health Systems

The National Health Systems Resource Centre in India along with the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recently conducted a workshop on Accelerating Transformation to High Quality Health Systems aimed at increasing quality of care by aligning ongoing efforts in the country and sharing overarching lessons on quality. Two recent publications on quality were discussed in detail: The Lancet Global Health Commission on High-Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era and the report published by World Health Organization, World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development titled Delivering Quality Health Services – A global imperative for Universal Health Coverage. Both reports discuss the most current findings on quality and make recommendations for building quality health systems to achieve universal health coverage.

Ms. Preeti Sudan, Secretary Health, and Mr. Manoj Jhalani, Additional Secretary & Mission Director, National Health Mission, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India chaired the session along with Dr. Margaret E. Kruk, Chair of the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health System, and Associate Professor of Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Vinod Paul, Member, Niti Aayog, Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India, and Dr. Henk Benkedam, WHO Representative to India were among the co-chairs of the workshop. Representatives from multiple state health departments attended the session including Mission Directors and Quality Program leads. Dr. Kruk noted “India will lose $3.7 trillion USD (2.1% of India GDP in 2030) as the value of lost input and $1.3 trillion USD between 2015 and 2030 (17% of India’s GDP in 2015) as the value of lost welfare due to poor health system”