Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, released the reports of third-party assessments of Ayushmann Bharat Health and Wellness Center conducted in 18 states. AB-HWC was a vision to provide affordable and accessible healthcare to every person across the nation envisioned by Prime Minister. The third-party evaluation of the scheme is a crucial step to assess the proper functioning and implementation of the scheme, stated the health minister. He added that the feedback will act as a guiding principle for future work and necessary steps to strengthen the scheme along with the coordinated moves to ensure last-mile delivery through teleconsultation have already been initiated.

Dr. VK Paul, Member, Health Niti Aayog, was virtually present at the release and stated that a Governance unit should be established for monitoring and reviewing the activity of AB-HWC. He added that further training for human resources at the wellness center is needed. As per the statement released by the ministry, the assessment was completed in two phases by Non-Governmental entities, GRAAM and JHPIEGO, for the year 2020-21. 

The primary aim of the assessment was to determine the pace of roll-out of wellness centers in different states including the specific challenges in the process. Since the scheme implementation was in an early stage, the assessment was based on inputs, processes, short-term outputs, an expanded range of services, a focus on chronic, non-communicable diseases, etc. The 18 states selected for the assessment were based on the different levels of epidemiological transition as defined by the Global Burden of Disease India study.

The study covered 317 facilities accounting for 117 Primary health centers/Urban primary health centers and 220 Sub health centers, also 1002 users from upgraded and 1015 from non-upgraded facilities were interviewed while covering both sections of comparison i.e., pre-and post-conversion of the wellness center and functioning of HWCs and non-HWCs in the same district.