India is embarking on an ambitious journey to provide UHC for its 1.2bn people, one sixth of the world’s population, through a national health assurance scheme. Today’s move of RSBY (India’s largest health insurance scheme, for its Below Poverty Line population) into the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare appears to be a significant step towards that goal.
HTA capacity development across Asia
HITAP’s activities during the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) 2015 focused on an overarching theme – priority-setting for universal health coverage (UHC), which is also the theme for next year’s PMAC. As a new member of the HITAP team, I was involved in different activities during the Conference, particularly helping out at the PMAC 2016 booth and two side meetings. …
Cuban medical education: The cat that couldn’t bark?
The award of almost 200 free scholarships to enable students from United States of America to study medicine in Cuba came as quite a surprise at an All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health meeting on 4 March 2015, chaired by Lord Crisp, titled ‘Potential Lessons for Primary Care Emerging from the Cuban Model of Medical Education’. Surely the USA’s …
Health Insurers from India visit NICE
A delegation of Health Insurers from the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and the Megha Health Insurance Scheme spent five days on a study visit learning about the role of NICE in Health Technology Assessment and priority setting in the NHS. “Thank you for the excellent study tour organized at Nice UK which was indeed …
African Health Economics and Policy Association International Scientific conference
African Health Economics and Policy Association International Scientific conference In March 2014 Thomas Wilkinson, Adviser (Health Economics), NICE International, attended the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) International Scientific conference in Nairobi, Kenya. AfHEA is the leading representative body for health economics and policy makers on the African continent and the conference was attend by 260 attendees representing 42 different countries. …