NHA Renews MoU with DHR and ICMR to Advance Evidence-Based Healthcare Under AB-PMJAY & ABDM

The renewed collaboration aims to strengthen technical cooperation for evidence-based decision-making to optimize healthcare resource allocation and enhance quality across India’s flagship health schemes.

The National Health Authority (NHA), the implementing agency of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), has renewed its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Health Research (DHR) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). 

The renewed collaboration aims to strengthen technical cooperation for evidence-based decision-making to optimize healthcare resource allocation and enhance quality across India’s flagship health schemes.

The MoU was formally signed by Dr. Sunil Kumar Barnwal, CEO, National Health Authority, and Dr. Rajiv Bahl, Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General, ICMR. Senior officials, including Ms. Jyoti Yadav, Joint Secretary (AB-PMJAY), Dr. Pankaj Arora, Director (NHA), and representatives from the Red Cross Society were also present.

The partnership between NHA and DHR/ICMR, initially established in November 2019, leveraged Health Technology Assessment (HTA) principles to support NHA in optimizing Health Benefit Packages (HBPs) under AB-PMJAY. The renewed MoU reaffirms the shared commitment to evaluating the clinical efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and equity impact of medical technologies, procedures, and devices covered under the scheme.

Expanding its scope, the collaboration will now include the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Under this, DHR and ICMR, through the Health Technology Assessment India (HTAIn) initiative, will provide data-driven insights to evaluate digital health interventions—such as electronic health records (EHRs), telemedicine platforms, and AI-based diagnostics—to ensure affordability, efficiency, and sustainability within the ABDM ecosystem.

Key focus areas include the costing of healthcare services using data from the National Costing Initiative to rationalize reimbursement rates, implementing Standard Treatment Workflows (STWs) developed by DHR/ICMR expert committees for appropriate disease management, and conducting operational research to address implementation challenges in AB-PMJAY and improve patient safety.

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