CM16.1-5 | Health Planning and Management — Glossary

Accredited Social Health Activist — a trained female community health worker, one per approximately 1,000 rural population, serving as the interface between the community and the formal health system under NHM.

A 2018 health system transformation comprising Health and Wellness Centres (1.5 lakh target for comprehensive primary care) and PM-JAY (Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, providing Rs. 5 lakh/year secondary/tertiary cover to the poorest 40% of India's population).

Health spending that exceeds 10% of total household consumption (or 25% of non-food consumption) — an equity indicator that captures the proportion of households impoverished by health costs.

A central government financing mechanism for programmes like NHM and Ayushman Bharat, where the centre contributes a defined share (typically 60% for general states) and states contribute the balance; the primary mechanism for centre-to-state health programme financing post-NITI Aayog.

Central Government Health Scheme — provides comprehensive medical care (OPD, hospitalisation, specialist referral) to central government employees, pensioners, and their families through CGHS wellness centres and empanelled hospitals.

Health economic evaluation that converts both costs and benefits into monetary terms, yielding a net benefit or benefit-to-cost ratio; used for large infrastructure and policy-level decisions.

Health economic evaluation that compares intervention costs against a single health outcome (e.g., cost per DALY averted, cost per case cured) expressed in natural health units; the most widely used economic evaluation method in public health.

Health economic evaluation that measures outcomes as Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), combining survival duration with quality-of-life weights; the standard method for health technology assessment (HTA).

In PERT/CPM network scheduling, the longest sequence of interdependent activities — any delay on the critical path delays the entire project, making it the priority focus of scheduling management.

The total economic cost imposed by a disease, comprising direct costs (medical expenses, transport) and indirect costs (productivity losses from morbidity, disability, and premature mortality).

Employees' State Insurance Corporation — India's social health insurance scheme for formal-sector employees earning below a defined wage threshold; provides medical care and cash benefits for illness, maternity, and occupational injury.

The periodic, systematic assessment of whether a programme has achieved its objectives and at what efficiency — distinguishable from monitoring by its focus on outcomes and impact rather than process fidelity.

A horizontal bar chart showing health programme activities plotted against time, used for scheduling, coordinating, and visually communicating implementation timelines; named after Henry Gantt.

A quantitative technique for health problem priority setting that scores each problem on four criteria: size (magnitude), seriousness (severity/mortality), effectiveness of available interventions, and PEARL feasibility factors (Propriety, Economics, Acceptability, Resources, Legality).

Upgraded sub-centre or PHC under Ayushman Bharat providing comprehensive primary care across 12 service categories (including NCD screening, mental health, oral health, palliative care) — the primary care component of India's UHC architecture.

The orderly process of defining community health problems, assessing unmet needs and available resources, setting priority goals, and projecting administrative action to accomplish programme purposes (after Park).

Health Management Information System — the national digital system for routine collection, aggregation, and reporting of facility-level health service data in India.

Health Technology Assessment in India — the national centre (under ICMR/MoHFW) that evaluates new health technologies for inclusion in public insurance packages using standardised economic evaluation methods including cost-utility analysis.

Indian Public Health Standards — the normative standards for health facility infrastructure, staffing, equipment, and services against which facilities are benchmarked in situation analyses.

India's MoHFW quality certification and incentive programme for public health facilities (launched 2015), which awards cash prizes and national recognition to facilities meeting defined quality standards across six domains — an application of TQM principles in the Indian public health system.

A structured accountability matrix showing health programme inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact, with indicators and means of verification — used to make the programme's theory of change transparent and verifiable.

The population segment — estimated 30-40% of Indians — above the PM-JAY poverty threshold but without access to formal social insurance (ESIC/CGHS), leaving them exposed to OOP expenditure for hospitalisation without any systematic financial protection.

The continuous, routine process of tracking programme inputs, activities, and outputs against the plan — typically using HMIS data — to identify implementation problems in real time.

India's system of health expenditure accounting that tracks all financial flows in the health sector; NHA 2019-20 is the most recent, providing authoritative data on OOP (48%), government health expenditure, and financing sources.

India's umbrella public health programme launched in 2013, encompassing the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM, 2005) and the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM); the largest single application of the health planning cycle in India.

An overarching government policy document setting the vision, goals, strategies, and targets for the country's health sector over a defined period; India has had three NHPs: 1983, 2002, and 2017.

National Family Health Survey — a nationally representative household survey providing population-level data on maternal and child health, nutrition, family planning, and health system utilisation; NFHS-5 was conducted in 2019-21.

National Health Policy 2017 — the current overarching Indian health policy that superseded NHP 2002, setting targets including 2.5% of GDP government health expenditure by 2025 and reducing out-of-pocket expenditure to 25% of total health expenditure.

National Institution for Transforming India — the policy advisory think-tank that replaced the Planning Commission in 2015; produces long-range strategy documents but has no authority to allocate government budget or funds to sectors or states.

Health spending paid directly by households at the point of care, without third-party reimbursement; the most inequitable form of health financing; 48% of India's total health expenditure per NHA 2019-20.

Plan-Do-Study-Act — an iterative quality improvement cycle (also called the Deming or Shewhart cycle) that tests changes at small scale before standardising and scaling those that demonstrate improvement.

Programme Evaluation and Review Technique / Critical Path Method — network-based project scheduling tools that show task interdependencies and identify the critical path (longest sequence of dependent activities) to prevent project delays.

An iterative six-phase process — situation analysis, priority setting, plan formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and re-planning — used to systematically design, implement, and continuously improve health programmes.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana — the hospitalisation insurance component of Ayushman Bharat, providing Rs. 5 lakh/year cover to approximately 50 crore beneficiaries from the poorest 40% of Indian households.

The planning-cycle phase in which identified health problems are ranked by objective criteria (magnitude, severity, feasibility) to determine where resources should be concentrated.

Quality-Adjusted Life Year — a measure of health outcome combining years of life gained with a quality-of-life weight (0=death, 1=perfect health); used as the denominator in cost-utility analysis.

The first phase of the planning cycle: a systematic assessment of current disease burden, resources, and gaps using epidemiological data, facility surveys, and community appraisals.

Programme objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound — the standard formulation used in plan formulation to ensure accountability.

The WHO-recommended strategy of delegating specific health tasks from higher-qualified to less-qualified but appropriately trained health workers, to extend limited skilled-worker capacity in resource-constrained settings.

An organisation-wide philosophy of continuous quality improvement emphasising customer focus, process orientation, employee involvement, and evidence-based decision-making.

The goal of ensuring that all people can access quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship — the organising principle of NHP 2017 and the global health agenda post-2015.