Following the two devastating waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, for many of us in India and indeed in several regions across the world, haunting images of patients waiting outside hospitals and family members struggling to find a bed for their loved ones may not have faded from memory. To avoid a repeat of this tragic crisis, what are important lessons from this experience? How might we be better prepared in the future? We discuss this in detail with Dr. Nachiket Mor.

Dr. Mor was a member of the Planning Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Universal Health Care, the Primary Care Task Force of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the Task Force on Global Health at the Academy of Medicine in Washington DC.  His current work is principally focused on the design of national and regional health systems. He is currently a Visiting Scientist at The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at IIIT Bangalore.

In this conversation, Dr. Mor talks to us about the value of a primary care provider or PCP-led model. You can read more on this from Dr. Mor here and here.

Some of the research that we mentioned in the podcast could be found below:

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341039677_Empowered_communities_and_Primary_Care_Providers_not_hospitals_hold_the_key_to_building_a_durable_response_to_COVID-19_in_Developing_Countries

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7562727/