Jaipur, December 21, 2021.

On a mission to provide quality maternal care in Rajasthan, the world’s first maternal health development impact bond, Utkrisht, has successfully served 2,25,583 deliveries through a vast network of 516 facilities in 32 districts in Rajasthan. These facilities, through their 6,192 staff trained for Manyata and NABH standards provided quality care to 4,51,012 mothers and newborns in Rajasthan. Utkrisht is expected to impact up to 600,000 pregnant women and save around 13,449 lives (including 12, 221 neonatal lives, 674 still births, and 554 maternal lives) over a five-year period.

The Utkrisht DIB was designed to provide support to private small health care facilities for improving quality of services through training and hand holding support to achieve accreditation and certification of the standards set by Quality Council of India (NABH) and FOGSI (Manyata). The partners involved in the Utkrisht DIB are USAID, UBS Optimus Foundation, Palladium, PSI, HLFPPT and MSD for Mothers.

Dr. Tarun Chaudhary, Project Director, Maternal Health, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of Rajasthan, Jaipur,said, “The role of accreditation of private hospitals by NABH and Manyata is very important to bring down the maternal and neonatal maternity, as around 25 percent of deliveries take place in private hospitals.”

Commenting on the impact of Utkrisht DIB so far,Dr. K. Madan Gopal, Senior Consultant (Health) NITI Aayog, said, “The Development Impact Bond mechanism has proven its worth in the successful implementation of the Utkrisht DIB. Such an innovative blended finance mechanism could be considered to address other crucial health issues i.e., TB elimination, Strengthening of Health and Wellness Centre, bolstering Family Planning, etc. to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 3.”

“First time in the country, a large number of private healthcare facilities got Joint Quality Standards by reaching unique combination of Manyata and NABH certification/accreditation, which would have long term impact on quality of services thereby reduction in facility-based mortality and morbidity” – claimed Dr. Adesh Chaturvedi, In-Country Team Lead & Field Director, Utkrisht Impact Bond.

Dr Lila Vyas from FOGSI who leads the Manyata assessments under Utkrisht, said, “The private sector accounts for over 25% of hospital births in Rajasthan and is used by women across socio-economic levels. By developing new approaches to improve, assess and sustain private healthcare facilities, Utkrisht has supported greater state-wide improvements in health outcomes so far”

Utkrisht has worked with private healthcare organizations for NABH and Manyata accreditation/certification by providing training and handholding support to prepare these facilities ready as per the standards and to apply for accreditation/ certification. National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) is a constituent board of Quality Council of India, set up to establish and operate accreditation programme for healthcare organizations.

Manyata is a quality improvement and certification initiative by the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI) which ensures private facilities adhere to WHO-recommended quality care standards and provide safe and respectful care to their patients. The initiative focuses on building a skilled and competent team of doctors and nurses through a comprehensive curriculum of 16 clinical standards that cover every aspect of pregnancy, right from antenatal care to postpartum family planning counselling. The Quality Improvement trainings provided under the initiative, has brought monumental difference in the way nurses conduct and manage the expecting mothers, especially in managing life threating complications like PPH (post-partum hemorrhage), eclampsia, etc.