The Disease Management Association of India (DMAI), the non-profit organization recently formed to propagate disease management concept and tools all over the country, is planning to initiate a Chronic Care Professional (CCP) certification programme for doctors across specialties in India to bring excellence on par with the international standards.

The Association, in collaboration with Health Sciences Institute, Chicago, is currently working on the curriculum and the fee structure for the certification programme for Indian doctors. The programme is expected to be launched in November 2008. The Disease Management Association of America (DMAA) is also working for the first time with the institute to bring in the certification programme under its activities, informed Rajendra Pratap Gupta, member, International Task force of DMAA and the president, DMAI.

Blake Anderson, director of Health Sciences Institute, Chicago, who also is the Chairman of the International Advisory board of DMAI is likely to make an announcement to this effect before the annual summit of DMAA to be held in September 8, at USA. The association will be ready for the launch of programme, which is the first of its kind in India, within two months after the announcement.

"This is for the first time that the doctors in India will have an access to an international chronic care certification program certified by DMAA. Currently, the doctors specialising in chronic disease in India are not trained to make behavioural changes at the time of treatment. Through the certification programme, we are planning to equip the Indian doctors to conduct treatment on chronic disease like diabetes, cardiovascular issues and chronic respiratory disease" Gupta averred.

The CCP certification programme is the only nationally recognized population health improvement, disease management and health coaching professional development and certification program, offered by Health Sciences Institute, Chicago. The programme is designed to augment the specialized training and skills of health care providers and unlike most certification programs the CCP program is consumer oriented, not discipline focused. "In India, almost 58 per cent of the death occurring due to disease is because of chronic ailments and an effort to betterment the services of specialists in this area would help to reduce the death rate," he maintained.

DMAI is also planning to introduce wellness audit services for the corporate companies India, by setting up specific guidelines for wellness standards of employees in each industry segment. "Recently, one of the major global fashion giant had cancelled the contract of the Indian exporter citing inhuman working conditions. In future, this is likely to extend across all companies in the out sourcing space. We wish to pre-empt the issue by issuing guidelines for a healthy work environment," informed Gupta.

The DMAI would approach the companies with more than 50 employees to conduct the wellness audit on a voluntary basis to address the health related issues of employees. DMAI has already conducted talks with some of the leading corporations and the responses were positive, he revealed. The wellness audit will be customised for each industry according to the working atmosphere of the individual company. The guidelines on employee's wellness /healthy working environment will be released towards November 2008 and the audits are likely to start early 2009.