Arogya Arali aimed to promote excellence in Community Oriented Primary Care through enhanced convergence of Gram Panchayats (GPs) and Primary Health Centers (PHCs). The pilot was undertaken in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka.

This was achieved through a system that integrated community health profiles to improve healthcare planning and bring home-based primary care to the communities as well as empower local bodies and existing partnerships at the Panchayat level. It was a multi-stakeholder partnership among the Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, the Academy of Family Physicians of India (AFPI) Karnataka, and civil society and private organizations to achieve greater coordination in improving the health of rural communities

During this program, a community-based cross-sectional study was conducted at three Primary Health Centers (PHCs) that serve about 47,450 people across 65 villages of the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka in India. All PHCs were actively involved in the health of the community and established trust based relationships with various tribal and non tribal groups.

The AFPI Team met with 15 Gram Panchayats and 3 PHCs and led focus groups and guided discussions to understand the roles of various staff, their experience in and understanding of community health, and receive feedback on improving direct health interventions and decentralized health care planning and implementation.

In addition, the AFPI team led an orientation workshop along with the District administration to explain the initiative and the role GPs and Gram Panchayat Task Forces’ can play in the health outcomes of their communities. A needs assessment was performed across the 37 members attending the orientation to gain insight into their current understanding of the health of their constituencies and the role of GPs in community and rural health.

The village level report was reviewed and discrepancies were verified with the PHC staff. The data was organized in a format that was easily interpretable across various groups and a dashboard was developed with village level drill downs for targeted discussions with GPs. As a result, the initiative gained insight on community health at a village level, the granularity of which has not been seen in existing literature in India.

In addition, home-based primary care training was provided to the GP-PHC staff. The key topics discussed included communication and empathy, wound management, elderly general check up, dementia and delirium, stroke and pain assessment and management.

With this initiative, we hope to further catalyze similar efforts to strengthen Community Oriented Primary Care across the Country.