India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre (ISHIC) in collaboration with AIIMS Jodhpur and AstraZeneca India launches Nurse’s Upskilling Program in Diabetes Management

Alongside the launch, also organised a showcase of an Oncology Centre of Excellence which is aimed at improving the quality of life of cancer patientsand the incubation centre that is incubating 24 innovative start upsto enable improved patient outcomes

Rajasthan, April 19, 2022: India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, a collaboration between the Swedish Trade Commissioner’s Office, AIIMS New Delhi and AIIMS Jodhpur, launched ‘Skill For Scale’, an e-learning initiative designed to equip nurses with hands-on practical knowledge and skills to practice latest patient care for managing non-communicable diseases. This program is certified by AIIMS Jodhpurand is endorsed by Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS),will allow nurses from across the country to register for free, learn at their own pace.

In its first phase the program is focusing on Diabetes management prevention and awareness based on a world-class comprehensive curriculum created from diverse resources available within the NCD domain following the NPCDCS guidelines. This program content and modules are created by the team of experts from AIIMS Jodhpur and an advisory board with representation from AIIMS Delhi, ICMR, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS),Indian Nursing Council (INC)and AstraZeneca. Basic and advanced modules are created to equip nurses to provide standardized and quality counselling, care and support services to the people to prevent and manage Diabetes.

Explaining the need of such as upskilling program which will target 5000 nurses in the first year, Dr. Sanjeev Misra, Director, AIIMS Jodhpur said, “Non-communicable diseases continues to be an important public health problem in India, being responsible for a major proportion of mortality and morbidity. Lack of trained health care workers, primary care providers with inadequate knowledge and skills are some of the challenges in controlling the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. Through this initiative, we are trying to bridge the knowledge gap that exists at the point of care for patients. The curriculum of this program is carefully designed to enable nurses to deliver specialized care, essential support services and standardized counselling for patients living with an increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases in India”.

Bringing down the burden of non-communicable diseases being the need of the hour, ISHIC has also created an Oncology Centre of Excellence that focuses on addressing the challenges faced by cancer patients and help them avail comprehensive cancer care. Through this project, all the cancer patients visiting the AIIMS Jodhpur campus will get counselling from dedicated Nutritionists, psychologists, physio therapists and palliative counsellors to improve the treatment adherence and overall quality of life of the patients.Commenting on its merit, Dr Anil Kukreja, VP Medical Affairs and Regulatory, AstraZeneca India said, “In India, where the burden of Cancer is much higher, on an average we see about 40% of treatment drop outrate. Patients need a comprehensive Palliative, Nutrition, Rehabilitation and Psychological support to continue treatment. This model of care via a LIVE CoE is the country’s first and a fine model that has seen significant success in the past six months of its launch here in Jodhpur, where about 6000 counselling sessions have been organised and with arevisit rate of ~50%. We have created a model framework based on this success that can be replicated in other non-communicable disease areas and can benefit many patients across the arena. As a part of the changing public healthcare scenario, it is imperative that nurses and health workers keep up with the evolving health needs, policies, technologies and knowledge to acquire the skills and practice up-to-date patient centric care. Upskilling nurses is a key aspect of this model that can prove to be a boon in ensuring the delivery of affordable, standardised and safe essential health care services, especially in the fight against non-communicable diseases”.

Expalining on the importance of working in the Swedish triple helix model on critical healthcare programs, Cecilia Oskarsson, Swedish Trade Commissioner to India said, “We are delighted to see the early success of these two critical initiaves that focus on influencing and enhancing the capabilities of healthcare ecosystem we have in India today.We are deeply encouraged to see the support these programs have garnered from the government, key industry organisations which is absolutely crucial to be able to implement such program at a national level and encourage wider use to be able to deliver benefits to the end patient and create an impact on the burden of healthcare. We will continue to evolve these cross learning programs between the two country to be able to bring about holistic benefit to patients in their journey of managing non-communicable diseases”.

These initiative will continue to run under the direction of an Advisory Committee led by Prof Suresh K Sharma, Professor & Principal, College of Nursing, AIIMS Jodhpur.The advisory committeecomprises of key dignitaries from AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Jodhpur, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS), Indian Nursing Council (INC), AstraZeneca India, and Business Sweden. This committee will be responsible to outline and review of the entire schedule of interventions, governing the overall framework, planning and on-ground conduct of the initiative, continuous evaluation of the project and development of a model for possible replication across the country.