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Medical Voice 25th July 2019

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Dr KK Aggarwal    25 July 2019

Healthcare spending by the government

As per National Health Accounts (NHA) Estimates, Government Health Expenditure as a percentage of GDP has increased from 1.13% in 2014-15 to 1.18% in 2015-16. The National Health Policy, 2017 envisages raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of GDP by 2025 in a time bound manner. It also envisages increasing State sector health spending to more than 8% of their budget by 2020… (PIB, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, July 23, 2019)

USPSTF recommends screening for hepatitis B virus infection in pregnant women

In a statement released this month, and published in JAMA, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has reaffirmed its previous conclusion that there is convincing evidence that screening for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in pregnant women provides substantial benefit.The USPSTF recommends screening for HBV infection in pregnant women at their first prenatal visit (Grade A recommendation)., the principal screening test for detecting maternal HBV infection is the serologic identification of hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg). Screening should be performed in each pregnancy, regardless of previous HBV vaccination or previous negative HBsAg test results.

Healthcare News Monitor

Only 15.8% of Indian work in worlds top 10 journals

ET Healthworld-IANS

Only 15.8 per cent of the total publications produced by Indian researchers feature in the top 10 journals globally, a government report has revealed. It has emphasised on the dire need to focus on the quality of research in the country. Compared globally, India trails the UK, which has 37.3 per cent research work published in top 10 journals, the US (36.2 per cent), Germany (33.4 per cent) and China (27.6 per cent). As per Scimago Journal Rankings, India ranks fifth in global research publication output. But countries such as the US, China, Germany and the UK continue to dominate the world rankings both in terms of quantitative and qualitative research.

Health ministry issues draft notification on Clinical Establishments Rules for stakeholders recommendations

Pharmabiz India- Shardul Nautiyal

In order to notify rules for minimum standards for Ayush and Allopathic clinical establishments, the union health ministry has placed draft notification on Clinical Establishments (Central Government Third Amendment) Rules 2019 in public domain for stakeholders comments and suggestions. As per the health ministry circular, these rules may be called as the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Third Amendment Rules 2019 and will come into force on the date of their publication in the official gazette. As per union health ministry notice, the draft of certain rules further to amend the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Rules, 2010 which the Central Government proposes to make in exercise of the powers conferred by section 52 of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 (23 of 2010) is hereby published for information of all persons likely to be affected thereby. Notice is hereby given that the said draft rules will be taken into consideration on or after the expiry of a period of forty five days from the date on which copies of the Gazette of India containing these draft rules are made available to the public. As per the draft guidelines, every clinical establishment shall maintain medical records of patients treated by it and health information and statistics in respect of national programmes and furnish the same to the district authorities in form of quarterly reports. All clinical establishments shall be responsible for submission of information and statistics in time of emergency or disaster or epidemic situation or as required from time to time by National Council, Clinical Establishments Act, 2010.

OPD in 2 shifts at UP govt hosps on cards: Health minister

Hindustan Times

With an aim to deal with the rush of patients at government hospitals, the state government is considering a proposal to run the outdoor patient department (OPD) services in two shifts. A proposal in this regard would be sent to the state cabinet for consideration, said minister for medical and health Sidharth Nath Singh while replying to a question by Congress member Aditi Singh and BSP member Uma Shankar Singh in the state assembly on Monday. He said at his behest the Indian Medical Association Kanpur had given a proposal for a pilot project for the second shift OPD from Tuesday to Saturday from 4pm to 6pm. The first shift of OPD is held from Monday to Saturday from 8am to 2pm. He said the chief medical officer (CMO) of Kanpur had forwarded the same to the state government. Singh further said that the state government was yet to take a call on the remuneration for doctors who would work in the second shift. The state government will submit a proposal to the Pradesh Medical Service (PMS) Association, the body which represents government doctors, in this regard. The OPD clinics will be functional in divisional, specialty and district hospitals as well as Community Health Centres (CHC) and Primary Health Centres (PHC). The state government would also implement teleconsultation in all the districts while telemedicine is being implemented in 28 districts of the state, he said.

With 3-tier surveillance, top Indian scientist gets ready to battle typhoid

moneycontrol

Gagandeep Kang is obsessed with data. From her early days as a student in Vellore’s Christian Medical College (CMC) in the 90s to building a nationwide network of surveillance centres for rotavirus, one of the major causes of diarrhoea in India, through the 2000s,the 56-year-old scientist has long identified the need for quality data to build medical public policy. Now, Kang – who in April became the first woman from India to become a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society in London – is building the disease burden case for typhoid, which kills around 200,000 people annually, most of them in India. Kang and her associates at CMC and Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, have built a three-tier surveillance system, spanning small catchment hospitals in rural areas to major cities. The first tier deals with 24,000 children in four sites between six months and 15 years of age, and checks for fever that lasts for more than three days. The second stage is in rural hospitals with a catchment of 100,000 people each. “The idea is that most fevers will go to these hospitals; any fever that gets admitted gets a blood culture, we measure how severe typhoid is in that community,” she said.

Hospitals still not displaying medical device prices, consumer groups say

ET Healthworld- Divya Rajagopal

MUMBAI: Two years after the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority introduced price caps and made it mandatory for hospitals to display the Maximum, Retail Price (MRP) of medical devices, a survey has found that most devices that hospitals use still do not have MRPs displayed on the packaging. The survey conducted by Local Circles, an online Social Media Community group surveyed 8619 unique users from its community and found that 50 percent of the respondents said that medical devices they came across, did not have MRPs while 28% said the medical devices did have an MRP and the rest said they did not pay attention to the pricing. “Patients and their families still continue to face problems with billing and at times are even charged much higher for the devices”, said Sachin Taparia, Founder of Local Circles to ET. “The price cut of medical devices need effective enforcement, hospitals need to put transparent pricing mechanism of procedure costs”, Taparia added. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had said that the devices which should have MRP on them included heart valves, surgical dressings, condoms, stents, disposable syringes and orthopaedic implants etc. All medical devices like stents, knee/hip replacements, catheters etc. are now supposed to have MRPs as per law. In 2017, the NPPA cut down the prices of stents and orthopaedic implants by over 60% creating a furore among medical device makers. The issue became blown into a diplomatic crisis between India and the United States, as the lobby group of American medical device makers forced the US government to push India out of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) a trade benefit that India got from the US.

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