ASSOCHAM Excellence in Healthcare Awards for Smile Foundation

Smile Foundation received the coveted ASSOCHAM Best CSR Excellence in Healthcare Awards, under the category of Implementing Organisation. The recognition was based on excellence achieved through the tele-medicine projects in Haryana's only aspirational district of Nuh (earlier known as Mewat), supported by SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited and implemented in collaboration with the Govt. of Haryana (District Health Administration).

The award was conferred by ASSOCHAM during the 2nd Healthcare Summit & Awards 2023 in New Delhi. Representatives from SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited joined Smile Foundation delegates in receiving the honour.

A single tele-medicine unit that began in May 2021 in Doha village of Haryana's lone aspirational district of Nuh (Mewat) grew into a project comprising 10 units at Health and Wellness Centres. Smile Foundation, in partnership with the Government of Haryana (District Health Administration) and supported by SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited, implemented the project in all four sub-divisions of Nuh, covering a population of one million.

"The District Health Administration is glad that the telemedicine project from the district of Nuh was recognized with the ASSOCHAM award. This project has been a collaboration between the Government of Haryana, Smile Foundation and SBI Card. We congratulate Smile Foundation for this achievement and hope that such interventions will be continued in Nuh district in future too," said Dr. Sarvjeet Thapar, Civil Surgeon, District Health Administration, Nuh.

The award category was open for Corporates, Service Providers, NGOs and Charitable Institutions, Medical Institutes, Medical Technology/Device companies, Hospitals, and other Healthcare Providers.

The award recognizes social initiative that has impacted the upliftment of healthcare status in India and has benefited the community at large.

"The award is a great encouragement. We thank SBI Card for supporting this innovative project and we appreciate the District Health Administration, Nuh for showing confidence in Smile Foundation. I am glad that our collective effort has shown results in the area of ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being, as envisaged in the Sustainable Development Goals (SGD- 3)," said Mr. Santanu Mishra, Co-founder & Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation.

The National Health Policy 2017 (NHP 2017) sets the goal of ensuring the highest possible level of health and well-being for all, through increasing access, improving quality and lowering the cost of healthcare delivery. The NHP 17 lays significant emphasis on leveraging digital technologies for enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of delivery of healthcare services. The policy recommends a paradigm shift from the existing silos systems to a holistic and comprehensive health ecosystem, founded on the latest digital architectures and technologies.

Tele-medicine is an important domain under the newly constituted National Digital Health Mission, thereby creating an enabling digital health ecosystem in the country. The National Health Authorities (NHA) has announced integration of National Telemedicine Service -eSanjeevani with its flagship scheme - Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM).

Ten e-Arogya Clinics comprising of Tele-Medicine kiosks with Medicine Vending Machines (MVM)) were established under eight Primary Health Centres (PHCs), covering a target beneficiary of 10 lakh population in all the four sub-divisions of the district of Nuh, namely Ferozepur Jhirka, Nuh, Punahana, and Taoru.

Consultations with general physicians and specialist doctors, free distribution of medicines, screening of NCD (non-communicable disease) and referral to secondary and tertiary healthcare services are being made available to people at these e-Arogya Clinics. In addition, capacity building of the front-line workers and CHOs (Community Health officers) are facilitated by organizing need-based training programmes in consultation with Nuh district health administration.

The e-Arogya clinics generate electronic health records (EHR) of the patients and also keep the record of non-communicable disease (NCD) that was shared with the government.

These 10 e-Arogya clinics have benefited over 35,000 individuals directly, of which 52 per cent beneficiaries are women. Community women, who could not think of going outside the village, have got the opportunity to take care of their health and wellbeing. This has also created an enabling eco-system, encouraging the communities towards availing relevant health entitlements and affirmative action as mandated by the government.

For the sustainability of e-Arogya clinics, all the 10 tele-medicine units under Ayushman Bharat - Health and Wellness centres are now integrated with e-Sanjeevani, the flagship National Telemedicine Service of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

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Smile Foundation is a national development organization directly benefitting over 1.5 million underprivileged children and their families every year through more than 400 welfare projects in education, healthcare, livelihood and women empowerment spread across 2,000 remote villages and urban slums in 25 states of India.

This release was published on openPR.