The National Health Authority and ICICI Foundation have signed an agreement to train 15,000 state and district personnel and Pradhan Mantri Arogya Mitras to streamline delivery of health services under the government's flagship Ayushman Bharat scheme.

The MoU between NHA and ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth is aimed at capacity building of health personnel at state and district levels. The state personnel are responsible for implementing the scheme in their respective states and Arogya Mitras are frontline health service professionals present at each empanelled hospital. Arogya Mitras serve as the first-point contact for beneficiaries and help them in availing the services.

This partnership with ICICI Foundation aims to skill more than 15,000 state personnel and Arogya Mitras over a period of one year. Post-training, the trained personnel will help the beneficiaries understand the scheme better. ICICI Academy for Skills will conduct the training programme at 20 of its centres, a National Health Authority (NHA) official said.

Speaking about the partnership, Indu Bhushan, CEO of Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY, said NHA is taking proactive steps to partner with private sector institutions with the goal of leveraging their expertise to streamline health service delivery and provide a seamless experience to beneficiaries. "This will help in boosting the confidence of beneficiaries on the care being provided under the scheme," he said.

Dinesh Arora, deputy CEO of NHA, said capacity building of implementers at all levels is a critical part of the scheme and will determine the extent and quality of services received by patients at the point of care. 

Saurabh Singh, president of ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth, said, "ICICI Group is committed to support NHA in this initiative of skill development and training. We will be offering skill training to the state personnel who will be ensuring the implementation of the policy as well as PMAMs, who will be the direct point of contact for the beneficiaries of this scheme. ICICI Bank is already facilitating NHA in its banking transactions." 

This joint initiative will be an additional step to assist the public at large in availing benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme. Under the flagship health scheme, the government aims to provide a cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year, for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to over 10.74 crore vulnerable entitled families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries). Over 29 lakh people have availed treatment under the scheme since its launch.

The scheme provides cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service. Under this scheme, there are 1,393 health benefit packages with defined rates. Over 15,000 hospitals and health care providers have been empanelled across the country to provide healthcare services as per these packages.