Initiative to use ideas of start-ups, cos to improve AB-PMJAY

A Grand Challenge, an initiative of inviting start-ups and other companies to provide ideas on expanding coverage and improving the Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) is to be launched on October 10.

Announcing this on Saturday, chief executive officer (CEO) of AB-PMJAY andNational Health Authority InduBhushan told reporters here that the "Grand Challenge is, we are inviting the start-ups and companies which have innovations to support us and provide ideas in terms of how we can expand our coverage, how can (we) improve quality (under Ayushman Bharat), reduce costs, and we will select top seven innovations.

We will reward them, and also use their innovations and ideas in our scheme, he told reporters here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to launch the initiative in Delhi.

Indu Bhushan was speaking on the sidelines of '8th International Patient Safety Conference 2019' organised by Apollo Hospitals here.

He said 18,000 hospitals have been empanelled so far and the effort was to get 25,000 on board.

Right now, we want to stabilise the scheme and ensure that more hospitals come onboard.

At present, we have 18,000. We want to bring it to 25,000. We also want to ensure the quality of services. What I mentioned about standard treatment protocols, and ensuring that we can enforce them. That is our next challenge, he said.

About 45 lakh people have been given treatment so far, he added.