Preventive Healthcare
Charaka, the renowned Ayurvedic physician is known to have said, "Health was vital for ethical, artistic, material and spiritual development of man". Good health is pre-requisite to human productivity and the development process. A healthy community is the infrastructure upon which an economically viable society can be built.
India is one of the pioneers in the health service planning with a focus on primary health care. Now the country is passing through a stage of "Health transition", which refers to the transformation of a society with high morbidity and mortality rates in to one in which people standardly live long, disease-free lives. The life expectancy at birth has increased from 41.3 years in 1951-52 to 62.9 years in 1999-2000. These indicators reflect India's significant achievements in case of development of its human capital. As the public spending on Healthcare has improved a lot, Government and the private sector are promoting the concept of the Preventive Healthcare.
Preventive healthcare is ultimately about increasing healthy life expectancy, improving quality of life and wellbeing, and reducing health inequalities. It is well established that your employment status, work environment and working conditions may affect your health and wellbeing. In turn, your health status may affect your employment status and performance at work.
A healthy, productive and well-motivated workforce is a key ingredient to economic growth. And for most people, engagement in work is central to their economic and social wellbeing and overall sense of fulfillment in life. Corporates are paying attention to the need of having a healthy workforce.
With the Indian Economy growing at enviable growth rates and the rising prosperity enjoyed by the workforce in India, people are adopting unhealthy lifestyles that their bodies cannot cope with. Sedentary jobs, poor diet, smoking and alcohol are all blamed for the dramatic health shift. India leads the world in diabetes cases. A government study estimated the number of diabetics to be about 38 million in 2004, and projected to rise to 57 million in 2025. The onus is on the part of the private sector in India to adopt preventive health programmes. The corporate sector can act as a catalyst in providing information about the lifestyle diseases and employee engagement in implementing a healthy life style within a company.
Preventive Healthcare system envisages having knowledge about the basic health needs, preventing oneself from communicable diseases, lifestyle diseases like diabetes and blood pressure, work related stress and injuries, about HIV/ AIDS and other related ailments which can spread through unsafe life practices and information about keeping a good mental health. Many of the corportaes in India have understood to have a preventive Healthcare programme in their premises. This health programme provides information on the ways and means to stay fit in a work environment.
Given that many conditions are preventable, every health care interaction in an organisation should include prevention support. When employees are systematically provided with information and skills to reduce health risks, they are more likely to reduce substance use, to stop using tobacco products, to practice safe sex, to eat healthy foods, and to engage in physical activity. These risk reducing behaviours can dramatically reduce the long-term burden and health care demands of chronic conditions. To promote prevention in health care, awareness raising is crucial to promote a change in thinking and to stimulate the commitment and action of patients and families, health care teams, communities, and policy-makers.
A collaborative management approach among the management, workforce and health care actors is a must to effectively prevent many major contributors to the burden of disease. The preventive healthcare programme is more of a business model while looking at a perspective of saving expenditures on health and ultimately keeping the workforce productive and healthy.
Globalization has thrown out lot of opportunities for India but also thrown out a lot of challenges in the health infrastructure side where the spread of communicable diseases is faster due to better connectivity. With increased incomes and higher life expectancy rate it is the responsibility of the Government, the corporate sector to join hands and create a health paradigm in India by forming a collaborative Health Preventive and Management programme.
Charaka, the renowned Ayurvedic physician is known to have said, "Health was vital for ethical, artistic, material and spiritual development of man". Good health is pre-requisite to human productivity and the development process. A healthy community is the infrastructure upon which an economically viable society can be built.
India is one of the pioneers in the health service planning with a focus on primary health care. Now the country is passing through a stage of "Health transition", which refers to the transformation of a society with high morbidity and mortality rates in to one in which people standardly live long, disease-free lives. The life expectancy at birth has increased from 41.3 years in 1951-52 to 62.9 years in 1999-2000. These indicators reflect India's significant achievements in case of development of its human capital. As the public spending on Healthcare has improved a lot, Government and the private sector are promoting the concept of the Preventive Healthcare.
Preventive healthcare is ultimately about increasing healthy life expectancy, improving quality of life and wellbeing, and reducing health inequalities. It is well established that your employment status, work environment and working conditions may affect your health and wellbeing. In turn, your health status may affect your employment status and performance at work.
A healthy, productive and well-motivated workforce is a key ingredient to economic growth. And for most people, engagement in work is central to their economic and social wellbeing and overall sense of fulfillment in life. Corporates are paying attention to the need of having a healthy workforce.
With the Indian Economy growing at enviable growth rates and the rising prosperity enjoyed by the workforce in India, people are adopting unhealthy lifestyles that their bodies cannot cope with. Sedentary jobs, poor diet, smoking and alcohol are all blamed for the dramatic health shift. India leads the world in diabetes cases. A government study estimated the number of diabetics to be about 38 million in 2004, and projected to rise to 57 million in 2025. The onus is on the part of the private sector in India to adopt preventive health programmes. The corporate sector can act as a catalyst in providing information about the lifestyle diseases and employee engagement in implementing a healthy life style within a company.
Preventive Healthcare system envisages having knowledge about the basic health needs, preventing oneself from communicable diseases, lifestyle diseases like diabetes and blood pressure, work related stress and injuries, about HIV/ AIDS and other related ailments which can spread through unsafe life practices and information about keeping a good mental health. Many of the corportaes in India have understood to have a preventive Healthcare programme in their premises. This health programme provides information on the ways and means to stay fit in a work environment.
Given that many conditions are preventable, every health care interaction in an organisation should include prevention support. When employees are systematically provided with information and skills to reduce health risks, they are more likely to reduce substance use, to stop using tobacco products, to practice safe sex, to eat healthy foods, and to engage in physical activity. These risk reducing behaviours can dramatically reduce the long-term burden and health care demands of chronic conditions. To promote prevention in health care, awareness raising is crucial to promote a change in thinking and to stimulate the commitment and action of patients and families, health care teams, communities, and policy-makers.
A collaborative management approach among the management, workforce and health care actors is a must to effectively prevent many major contributors to the burden of disease. The preventive healthcare programme is more of a business model while looking at a perspective of saving expenditures on health and ultimately keeping the workforce productive and healthy.
Globalization has thrown out lot of opportunities for India but also thrown out a lot of challenges in the health infrastructure side where the spread of communicable diseases is faster due to better connectivity. With increased incomes and higher life expectancy rate it is the responsibility of the Government, the corporate sector to join hands and create a health paradigm in India by forming a collaborative Health Preventive and Management programme.
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