Standard Treatment For 54 Common Illnesses: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has issued a set of new standard treatment guidelines for 54 common conditions in 11 specialties for use by physicians at all levels of public health care.
Standard Treatment For 54 Common Illnesses
Section III of the ‘Standard Treatment Workflow‘ seeks to address the problems associated with irrational use of drugs, over- and under-diagnosis and poor referral practices.
An ICMR statement on Wednesday said Dr Vinod K Paul, Member (Health) of NITI Aayog, also released the book ICMR Standard Treatment Workflow – Volume III and a mobile app dealing with 54 conditions under 11 specialties.
Speaking on the occasion, Professor (Dr) Balram Bhargava, Secretary, DHR, and Director General, ICMR, said, “The burden of delivering healthcare in peripheral areas is mainly on primary care practitioners who are doing a phenomenal job.
Standard Treatment Workflows will help these clinicians stay updated and provide comprehensive guidance on how to manage common conditions”
Dr Paul said, adding that the use of Standard Treatment Workflows (STWs) in a public health system operational research mode and at various levels but should be investigated.
He said that a robust dissemination strategy including international coverage should be planned involving various stakeholders.
ICMR released Volume I with 53 terms in 2019 and Volume II in March this year with 18 terms specifically focused on tuberculosis.
With increasing new scientific evidence and rising healthcare costs, healthcare providers routinely require simple standard treatment guidelines, workflows, and reference manuals.
The latest STWs will help in implementing it effectively at all levels with a focus on quality health care, the statement said.
Dr Lokesh Sharma, a senior scientist at ICMR said, “Developing STWs is a mission mode project of the Indian Council of Medical Research, for common and critical illnesses faced by treating physicians at all levels of health care systems.
The aim is to guide them for management and encourage rational use of medicines, diagnostics and other health services.” “It is expected that these resource stratified treatment workflows will be useful for doctors working at primary, secondary as well as tertiary levels and will help in optimum utilization of resources,” he said.
Dr Sharma said that this will help towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as the Indian health system is gearing up by launching several schemes like National Health Protection Scheme, Ayushman Bharat, Nutrition Supplementation Scheme, Indradhanush Yojana etc.
Specialties such as dermatology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, general surgery, sickle cell disease, neonatology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, female infertility, pediatric surgery were included in STW Volume III, he said. Standard Treatment For 54 Common Illnesses
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