While Tamil Nadu has been at the forefront of healthcare, there needs to be clarity about the outcomes and how beneficial government spending has been, Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said on Wednesday.
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There have been decent outcomes. But better outcomes can be achieved from clarity on beneficiaries, he said, speaking at the Australia India Business Exchange (AIBX) digital health roundtable with the Tamil Nadu government and the local healthcare industry. It was organised by the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, Australian government.
As part of AIBX, an Australian digital health delegation is visiting India.
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Mr. Thiaga Rajan said one of the issues was lack of enough data and analysis. He stressed the need to move from a department-wise cost-centric approach to a beneficiary-centric approach. There should be a common platform comprising the databases of beneficiaries such as children, old age people and fishermen, he said. “We can learn from States like Karnataka and Telegana which have common databases. This can help in avoiding redundancy across programmes,” he added.
Shilpa Prabhakar Satish, Director, National Health Mission, said efforts were being made to implement in-patient management systems at all health institutions across the State. She pointed out that after the Population Health Registry was developed, it would be integrated with the Health Management Information System.
Health Secretary P. Senthil Kumar; Sarah Kirlew, Consul-General, Australian Consulate-General, Chennai; Abdul Ekram, Trade and Investment Commissioner, Austrade; and Holger Kauffman, Chief Technology Officer, Australian Digital Health Agency, were part of the event.