ICMR launch ambulatory services for NCDs

Expression of Interest (EOI) has been invited by ICMR for the research study on ambulatory care in public health systems of India for NCDs (Non-communicable diseases).

The National Programme for Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD) in India is implementing the EoI to produce practical, scalable, and sustainable solutions that enable evidence-based effective management of non-communicable illnesses. In public primary health care systems, there is a need to provide effective NCD ambulatory treatment utilizing a variety of tactics, including,

• For testing diagnosis and follow-up, available point of care should be used
• To decrease physician inertia build capacity of providers
• Easy-to-use treatment algorithms should be used
• Better diagnostics and medicine supply logistics
• Streamlined data information systems

The public primary health care system in India was created to address infectious diseases, maternity health, and children's health. However, the majority of the diseases affecting the healthcare system at the moment are NCDs. To manage non-communicable illnesses, it is necessary to provide lifelong care support and have a solid information system that allows for patient tracking and follow-up to track indicators and avoid complications.

NPCDCS (The National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases & Stroke), which was founded in 2010, aims to manage NCDs by early diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up in NCD clinics with a programmatic goal to decrease premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through efficient NCD prevention and control in the public health care system. For example - IHCI (India Hypertension Control Initiative) was found in the already available framework of NP-NCD in 2018. It has shown a respectable level of success in enrolling and keeping patients with hypertension and lowering blood pressure. It is currently being used in more than 140 districts across the nation.

The WHO's HEARTS initiatives served as the basis for the creation of the IHCI with some strategies like:

• Simple drug and dose specific protocols
• Medications availability should be uninterrupted
• Patient-centered care
• Team-based approach with task sharing
• Reliable information system

The ICMR will examine and shortlist the EOI documents. The five important criteria used by the expert team of ICMR that will help in application screening are problem relevance and comprehension, actions on implementation techniques and research methodologies, research team composition, ability to perform implementation research, and relationship with the health system.

The teams that have been shortlisted will be asked to work together and create a thorough proposal under the direction of ICMR HQ. The expert group will assess the technical and operational components of the produced plan.