HYDERABAD: Indian School of Business recently concluded the Public Policy Dialogues 2024, organised by the Bharti Institute of Public Policy (BIPP). The three-day event brought together researchers and practitioners who shared their insights on important facets of human development through a series of expert panels and roundtable discussions.
For the plenary session, Dr K Srinath Reddy, Padma Bhushan awardee and Honorary Distinguished Professor at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), delivered the keynote address. Amarjeet Sinha, retired IAS officer and member of the Public Enterprises Selection Board, delivered an expert talk on ‘Human Development Perspective from India’. Professor Ashwini Chhatre and Dr Aarushi Jain of BIPP also spoke on the occasion.
K Srinath Reddy emphasised the concept of health assurance, focusing on a vision that extends beyond healthcare. Health financing, primarily through tax-based funding, additional government budgets, and social insurance programs, is central but is only one aspect of healthcare. A competent health system with a skilled workforce, infrastructure, reliable information systems, and good governance is crucial to delivering health entitlements, he said.
Introducing a three-tier model, where health financing is at the core of a functioning health system, the social determinants of health play a bi-directional role in delivering healthcare. Social determinants operate at societal and individual levels, encompassing water, sanitation, food systems, environment, education, occupation, income, gender, and social support networks. “We need to look at all these factors as a constellation of many complex adaptive systems, whether it’s the environment, agriculture and food systems, all of them are coalescing with each other. Changes in one can have an early visible impact on health, but can catalyse a chain reaction which can influence others,” he said.
The panel discussion on “Healthcare for All” was moderated by Amarjeet Sinha and included Dr Abhay Shukla, Rajeev Sadanandan, Prof Ritu Priya and IAS Arti Ahuja as speakers. The panellists discussed the learnings from COVID waves, and the efforts made at the government and community levels. Dr Abhay Shukla pressed on how the health services are becoming increasingly centralised giving no scope to states and communities to function. He also talked about the immense pressure on frontline workers in the form of data asked from them.
The roundtable discussion on the same topic focused on the current healthcare policies and future challenges to our health system with possible mitigation strategies. The panellists included many esteemed voices in public health sector like Prof A K Shiv Kumar, Vandana Prasad and more. COVID interventions by many states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu was discussed as case studies which can be used for wider planning and development of healthcare systems in the future. The health issues faced by different marginalised group was discussed. Dr Vandana Prasad talked about health challenges faced by tribal populations. Professor Ritu Priya from CSMCH, JNU highlighted the importance of National Rural Heathcare Mission (NRHM). The session covered comprehensive issues in the current public health sector in India.
Another panel discussion, titled ‘AI Solutions for Last Mile Healthcare Delivery in Rural India’ explored various AI interventions underway in the healthcare sector. Moderated by Dr Avik Sarkar, professor at ISB, the session had panellists from organisations like Wadhwani AI, Qure.ai and LVPEI, who highlighted the achievements they have made in using AI in healthcare. For example, the use of AI for diagnosis of pulmonary Tuberculosis has helped track the patients who are vulnerable and susceptible to fall out of the treatment cascade. It has also helped provide services in resource compromised rural areas. One of the panellists, Alpan Raval of Wadhwani AI, talked about the need for well-defined social systems and wider changes without which AI solutions will not work, adding that the research in AI is the easy part, getting people to follow the recommendations is difficult.
Finally, the panel discussion titled ‘Data Protection Legislation in India: Importance for Health and Research’ centred on a critical question: “Is Data Privacy synonymous with Data Security?” In her opening remarks, moderator Deepika Saluja stated the importance of creating institutions that ensures that data security exists as a pre-requisite for data privacy. The panellist highlighted the importance of having a culture of privacy which is important for both citizens as well as institutions. The panellist Vaishnavi Mangal highlighted the importance of having a connect between policy planning and implementation and said that frontline workers are care workers for the community; it needs to be ensured that they are not reduced to mere data collectors for the community with the digital intervention in health.