Niti Aayog Proposes 'Surveillance Information Platform' To Strengthen India's Public Healthcare System

Aiming at making India’s public health surveillance system more responsive and predictive to enhance preparedness for action at all levels, government think tank Niti Aayog has proposed setting up a surveillance information platform.

Releasing a white paper titled Vision 2035: Public Health Surveillance in India,
Niti Aayog said India aims to provide regional and global leadership in managing events that constitute a public health emergency of international concern.

"Going forward, India's public health surveillance will be based on individual Electronic Health Records (EHR) that capture and amalgamate individuals' healthcare-related information through the use of a unique health identifier (UHID)," the Aayog said.

Jointly prepared by Niti Aayog and University of Manitoba, Canada, the report envisages improved a data-sharing mechanism between the Centre and states for better disease detection, prevention, and control.

"Public Health Surveillance could be integrated within India's three-tiered health system," the report said.

According to the Aayog, this is used in every clinical, laboratory, or pharmacy visit and for vertical disease control programmes.

Further, the periodic surveys are positioned as additional complementary methods to reassess the incidence and prevalence of diseases or risk factors, to adjust and refine standard case definitions periodically, to define epidemic thresholds, and to refine response levels and measures, it said.

The Aayog also pitched for establishing mechanisms to streamline data sharing, capture, analysis and dissemination to include the use of situation-aware real-time signals from social media, mobile sensor networks and participatory surveillance systems for event-based epidemic intelligence.

"A Surveillance Information Platform will store, analyse, and auto-generate relevant reports for action. As well, this remains a repository for further analysis and research which will complement the available surveillance information," the Niti Aayog said.

It also suggested setting up an interdependent federated system of governance architecture between the Centre and states.

The Aayog also suggested allowing enhanced use of new data analytics, data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to bridge gap areas in India's Public Health Surveillance.

According to the government think tank, it would be important to set up effective and responsive governance mechanisms that establish political, technical, digital and managerial leadership in order to enable India to reach 'One-Health Approach for Public Health Surveillance'.

The Niti Aayog also noted India's Public Health Surveillance that could be addressed by creating a skilled and strong health workforce dedicated to surveillance activities.

The report was released by Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Member (Health) Vinod K Paul.

In his foreword, Kumar said India has made substantial progress in the prevention, control and elimination of major communicable diseases.

"The time is right to enhance the surveillance of non-communicable diseases and to replace traditional surveillance systems of data-entry with recent developments in digital health and technology, in alignment with the National Digital Health Mission," Kumar said.

Paul said the document becomes even more relevant as India and the world tackles the pandemic of Covid-19.

It also suggested prioritising diseases that can be targeted for elimination as a public health problem, regularly improving core support functions and establishing mechanisms to streamline data sharing, capture, analysis and dissemination for action.

"The gains made and lessons learned from Covid-19 and past experience with identifying and controlling outbreaks, reducing, eliminating and eradicating diseases must be consolidated to enhance Public Health Surveillance in India," Paul noted.

Covid-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to revisit (re) emerging diseases due to increased interaction between human-animal-environment.

"Early identification of this interference is essential to break the chain of transmissions and create a resilient surveillance system. This vision document is a step in that direction, it articulates the vision and highlights the building blocks," it said.