A high-level committee headed by Dr N K Ganguly is interacting with various universities to prepare a finance model and to locate knowledge partner to develop public-private partnership model to launch distance education programmes in respect of health facility planning and healthcare engineering.

The Government formed the panel to follow-up the recommendations of the expert committee, headed by ICMR chief Dr Ganguly himself, which recommended two courses recently, sources said.

The panel had recommended Master's in Health Facility Planning and designing and masters in Healthcare Engineering Management sometime back, with a view make the healthcare institutions competitive in the changing global scenario.

The first course will be meant for graduates or those having equivalent education in engineering, architecture, town planning, dentistry, medicine, nursing and vet science. The second programme is for those with the background of engineering and town planning.

The follow-up committee would now finalise the modalities, course contents, recognition, PPP models and other ancillaries and would consult with different universities and private players in this regard.

"Due to fast changing medical technology, hospital buildings require constant changes and hence constant research in designs, building technologies, new materials, space utilization sustainability, green concepts and applications. Efficiently-run hospitals will contribute a lot in medical tourism," the panel recommended, in its report submitted to the Health Minister sometime back.

The committee was set up in November 2006 to draft/review course structure for full-time and distance education programmes in respect of Health Facility Planning and Designing and Healthcare Engineering and Management.

"Healthcare Engineers are important adjunct of hospital administrations and inter-disciplinary approach will help patient care, hospital environs and quality of life of patients," the committee observed, while recommending strongly that these courses be started in 2007.

During the process of setting up new six AIIMS-like hospitals and upgrading of 13 medical colleges, as planned by the Centre, difficulty was experienced in locating qualified hospital architects and hospital engineers. This has prompted the government to launch the specialized programmes at the earliest.