Taking a serious note of the absence of a uniform system of registering medical practitioners/ institutions in the private or voluntary sector in the country, the Planning Commission of India has decided to strengthen the activities of the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) in this area.

CBHI, which was given the task of compiling data on health care infrastructure and manpower at all levels during the ninth plan period itself, had been assigned to compile a comprehensive data on healthcare in the private, voluntary, industrial, governmental and other sectors.

However, the Tenth Plan draft of the Commission has noted that though a Standing Technical Advisory Committee headed by the Director General of Health Services was set up and the CBHI assigned the task, little has been done so far. By strengthening the activities of CBHI, this task will be taken up and completed on a priority basis during the Tenth Plan.

Currently, there is no mechanism for obtaining and analyzing information on health care infrastructure and manpower at the district level in India.

Available data on infrastructure and manpower in the hospitals and dispensaries (excluding PHCs and CHCs) in private and public sector from both rural and urban area computed from CBHI reports are not totally reliable, it is learnt. The reason for the inadequate data collection is the absence of proper statistics within the state governments.

While information on the government sector institutions is reliable, data on the private sector is incomplete and is based on information provided by the state medical councils and state governments. The commission has pointed out that the data from Andhra Pradesh indicate that there may be massive differences between the data reported by CBHI and the actual census conducted by the state government.

The Tenth Plan will have reorganisation and restructuring the existing government health care system including the ISM&H infrastructure at the primary, secondary and tertiary care levels with appropriate referral linkages as one of its major goals in the health sector. These institutions will have the responsibility of taking care of all the health problems (communicable, non-communicable diseases) and deliver reproductive and child health (RCH) services for people residing in a well-defined geographic urban and rural area.

Development of appropriate two-way referral systems utilising information technology (IT) tools to improve communication, consultation and referral right from primary care to tertiary care level, building up an efficient and effective logistics system for the supply of drugs, vaccines and consumables based on need and utilization, horizontal integration of all aspects of the current vertical programmes including supplies, monitoring, information education communication and motivation (IECM) will be some of the objectives of the 10th plan.

Skill up-gradation of all health care providers through CME and reorientation will also be planned. Redeployment of the existing health manpower, so as to enable them to take care of the existing and emerging health problems at primary, secondary and tertiary care levels has also been suggested.