300 hosps join Ayushman on-boarding workshop

Kolkata: Several private hospitals have joined a three-day ‘Health Facility Registry and Health Professional Registry' workshop for getting on board the Ayushman Bharat Yojana. The workshop is being conducted by the North 24 Parganas district administration at Barasat from May 20-22. While over 300 hospitals and clinical establishments have so far attended the meet and initiated the online process, a team from Bengal was trained in Delhi and they will conduct further workshops for hospitals in the state. At least three Kolkata hospitals have completed the onboarding process over the last week while several are at various stages of completion. The onboarding workshops are being held twice a day, for two hours and 15 minutes each. A virtual onboarding meeting was conducted by Swasthya Bhavan for hospitals and nursing homes across Bengal on May 19. The Health Facility Registry (HFR) is a unified, digital healthcare ecosystem in India, linking doctors, hospitals and patients, and seamlessly managing electronic health records. The Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) is a centrally maintained, verified repository of doctors, nurses, paramedics and allied healthcare workers across all medical systems."We attended the workshop convened by the North 24 Parganas DM on Thursday, where HCG and other hospitals were trained on the onboarding process for Ayushman Bharat. Our registry was completed earlier and we were informed that a state nodal team is undergoing training in Delhi and, on return, will guide all hospitals for further integration," said Rupali Basu, regional business head, east & AP, HCG Cancer Hospitals. Charnock Hospital and Techno India DAMA Hospital were among those that attended the meet. "While we are in the process, citizens who are already covered by personal or corporate health insurance, or are economically well placed, may ideally remain outside the scheme's ambit," added Basu. "We have started the process. There was no direction on the transfer of the existing scheme or patients to Ayushman Bharat, other than that Swasthya Sathi will continue," said the head of a hospital in Salt Lake. Meanwhile, Association of Hospitals of Eastern India (AHEI) held an internal meeting on Wednesday in which all private hospitals were asked to get empanelled for Ayushman and continue admitting patients under Swasthya Sathi. "Most hospitals have started onboarding. We are waiting for instructions from the govt on merging Swasthya Sathi with Ayushman," said Rupak Barua, CEO of Woodlands Hospital. The latter has just completed the onboarding process. Manipal Hospitals, too, have initiated the empanellment process. "The Ayushman Bharat initiative is playing a crucial role in expanding access to quality and affordable healthcare across the country," said Ayanabh Debgupta, regional director, Manipal Hospitals East.