National Health Authority (NHA) and National Cancer Grid (NCG) today signed an MoU to develop uniform standards of patient care to battle cancer under Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB – PMJAY). National Cancer Grid (NCG) is an initiative of the Government of India to create a network of cancer centres, research institutes, patient groups and charitable institutions across India.
Owing to the multi-disciplinary nature of care required for cancer management, both NHA and NCG recognize the importance of collaborative efforts required to strengthen delivery of cancer services under AB – PMJAY with common objectives to reduce cancer burden, ensure uniform standards of patient care towards effective and efficient patient-centric care, improve access to cancer services and ensure financial risk protection with minimum prevalence of catastrophic health spending and impoverishment.
The NCG and NHA officials met in New Delhi to discuss their new partnership on a wide range of ideas to improve cancer care in India. The main objectives of this collaboration include developing uniform standards of patient care for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer; providing specialized training and education in oncology and facilitating collaborative basic, translational and clinical research in cancer.
NHA and NCG will jointly review existing cancer treatment packages, pricing of services, standard treatment workflows covered under AB-PMJAY and plug in necessary gaps to ensure enhanced quality of cancer care.
Both organisations will work on creating cancer services/package benefits based on priority setting tenets such as evidence of efficacy, value (cost-effectiveness), low harm, demand/ burden, medical necessity, and wide availability. NCG will work closely with NHA to rationalize payment rates for different benefit packages and treatment/diagnosis plans, and also explore mechanisms to signal right incentives to providers to ensure quality through pricing mechanisms.
Highlighting his views on this new partnership, Dr. Indu Bhushan, CEO, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY, and National Health Authority, said, “We are glad to partner with National Cancer Grid and welcome their expertise in enhancing the cancer care services provided under AB – PMJAY. We look forward to NCG’s support and expertise in enabling us to expand our service delivery network by actively encouraging its member hospitals to empanel with AB – PMJAY.”
Speaking on the occasion, Prof. R A Badwe, Director, Tata Memorial Centre said, “Our meeting with National Health Authority has been extremely fruitful. We are partnering with NHA to establish and optimize processes and guidelines to implement top-notch standards across all levels of cancer treatment and care under AB – PMJAY.”
The MOU signing was attended by Dr. Dinesh Arora, Deputy CEO, AB – PMJAY and NHA, Prof. C.S. Pramesh, Director Tata Memorial Hospital and Dr. Arun Gupta, Executive Director, Health Network and Quality Assurance, NHA.
