Care Companion scheme launched

CHANDIGARH: Punjab health and family welfare minister Brahm Mohindra on Thursday launched its flagship health scheme, ‘Care Companion Programme” (CCP)’, for improving patient outcomes through better family engagement and education.

The minister, while launching this “ambitious” scheme, said health and family department has entered into a MoU with the Noora Health India Trust, a healthcare non-profit organisation dedicated to patient and caregiver education, for this. “This innovative program turns hospital hallways/wards into classrooms and taps into the most compassionate and willing resource available for care – the patient's own family – by teaching the family high-impact medical skills to take care of their loved ones in the hospital and at home,” he said.

Mohindra said the scheme will be initially implemented in maternal and child health wings of district hospitals in Amritsar, Patiala, Jalandhar, SBS Nagar, Sangrur, TarnTaran.

Noora Health will be the technical partners to implement the programme in the state.

“Staff nurses from all the six hospitals are trained on how to engage and teach patients and caregivers in the wards,” he said.

Families will learn high-impact health skills for taking care of the new-born baby and postpartum mother, specifically, baby hygiene, thermal care, breastfeeding, and maternal nutrition,” he said in a statement.

The aim is to reduce the number of baby deaths and complications such as infections in the first 30 days’ post-discharge, and ensure adoption of long-term health pro motive behaviours.