The India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)
The India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI), based in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was established in July 2020. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the initiative aims to support the important Government initiatives to deliver Comprehensive Primary Health Care. The India Primary Health Care Support Initiative is in partnership with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences-Delhi and works in collaboration with the National Health Systems Resource Center (NHSRC), Government of India.
Why primary health care?
IPSI is based on the philosophy that strong primary health care systems are foundational for achieving universal health coverage. India has a long-standing commitment to comprehensive primary health care. The National Health Mission, and the government’s new flagship health program, Ayushman Bharat (particularly the Health and Wellness Centre-HWC component), represent important efforts to strengthen state primary health care systems. The high dual burden of non-communicable and communicable diseases, population aging, and rapid urbanization have made it even more critical to strengthen primary health care systems. Furthermore, the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the important role of primary health care services and strategies for containing infectious disease epidemics.
IPSI aims to support the government’s endeavours in primary health care field by supporting the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in developing a framework for assessing the performance of Primary Health Care systems.
IPSI will also support one district each in Gujarat, Odisha and Meghalaya to strengthen comprehensive primary health care delivery and improve primary health care system’s performance. For this, IPSI will work with a local partners in each of the three states.
The IPSI approach
To achieve its objectives in creating a primary health care-focused ecosystem in India, IPSI will work on the following three “pillars”:
- Measure: develop and deploy a state- and district-level performance measurement index for assessing primary health care system’s performance which integrates the primary health care approach and components of the HWC operational guidelines issued by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
- Demonstrate: provide design, implementation and capacity building support to the three selected states and one district from each state for improving primary health care system performance and coverage of the 12 packages of services at HWCs.
- Recognize: Reward district performance improvement efforts towards HWC implementation and primary health care outcomes.
Consortium of partner organizations
IPSI activities will be undertaken in partnership with a range of institutions operating in the primary health care space. All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS Delhi) is the national partner of the IPSI secretariat. National Health Systems Resource Center (NHSRC) is the nodal agency on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India for this project. Within states, IPSI activities will be carried out with support from local partners.
The project director is Krishna D. Rao PhD, MSc, an associate professor in the Department of International Health at the Bloomberg School. Other Bloomberg School faculty working on the project include: