: Mumbai, October 5, 2023

The second Regional Community Health Officers (CHO) Conference, organized for western zone states, will be held in Nashik, Maharashtra, on 6^th and 7^th October, 2023. Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar along with Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare S P Singh Baghel will inaugurate the two-day conference. The participating States/UTs are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Goa and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, and Daman & Diu. 200 CHOs including 40 CHOs from AYUSH HWCs will participate in the conference. This conference is being held for the second time after the success of the first regional CHO conference in Varanasi in December 2022.

India’s commitment to achieving universal health coverage, was translated through the establishment of health and wellness centres as a platform for providing comprehensive primary healthcare closer to people’s homes across the country. Ayushman Bharat - Health and Wellness Centres are envisioned to be the foundation of India’s primary health care system. As on date, more than 1.61 lakhs HWCs have been operationalized.

The Community Health Officers (CHO) are the backbone of Sub Health Centre-Health and Wellness Centres. They perform crucial clinical, managerial, and public health functions in coordination with the team of multipurpose workers and ASHAs. As of now, more than 1.30 lakh CHOs have been placed at SHC-HWCs across the country.

The conference will focus on the four following themes

1. Clinical & public health functions - roll out of comprehensive primary healthcare services, organizing wellness activities and annual health calendar days etc.
2. Managerial functions - management of HWC team members, periodic reviews, supportive supervision and administrative functions.
3. Community connect & AYUSH integration - working in coordination with Jan Arogya Samiti, VHSNCs, convergence with other departments and integration of AYUSH.
4. IT initiatives - telemedicine through e-Sanjeevani and continuum of care, Tele-Manas ABHA-ID.

The Principal Secretary (Health), Government of Maharashtra, Shri. N. Nawin Sona, Commissioner Health Services & MD NHM Shri Dheeraj Kumar and other senior officials from MoHFW, Ministry of AYUSH, National Health Systems Resource Centre will also attend the conference.

The workshop will be conducted for one and half days (1.5 days). It will include field visits to sub-health centres to understand the mechanism of delivering comprehensive primary healthcare and continuum of care. On the second day of the workshop, CHOs from west zone states will make presentations on the four themes and eminent experts will speak on comprehensive primary health care.

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SC/PM Source: MoHFW

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