AP creates COVID-19 ranking system to encourage districts to improve healthcare

The points of each district are updated on a daily basis and the rankings are generated by an automated process.
Doctor recruitment process in Vijayawada in August
Doctor recruitment process in Vijayawada in August
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As part of its battle against COVID-19, the Andhra Pradesh government has come up with a unique system of ranking districts based on how well they are tackling the pandemic. On a daily basis, based on several factors taken into consideration, the state Health Department gives points to each district. Though updated daily, the rankings are presently being published on a weekly basis.

A total of 19 parameters are considered for the rankings. Number of ICU beds, discharge rate compared to admission, number of deaths, submission of daily hospital reports, cleaning of toilets and wards, supply and quality of food, frequency of doctor visits etc are some of the important factors taken into consideration. Each of the 19 parameters contributes to the total of 2500 points that are up for grabs. The process has been made very simple and each district is also provided the method of calculation and the details of the parameters considered for the rankings.

Bhaskar Katamaneni, Commissioner Health and MD National Health Mission explained that the only reason behind establishing the ranking system is to motivate hospitals to perform better. He also mentioned that this was an internal process. He said, “The functioning of the system is automated on a daily basis. Data is updated daily. Parameters are based on the number of patients and number of beds. There is no manual intervention. The technical data input comes in from many sources. There is no specific team who is looking at the data as it is an automated process.”

He added, “This is being assessed for the hospitals to improve and districts to compete with each other to improve their hospital standards. It also checks individually, on every parameter, on how and why they were scored. This is purely based on improving internal quality assessment and for better improvement.”

Anantapur, which has 12 hospitals, has been on the top of the charts since the ranking began a week ago. According to the rankings released on September 27, seven districts out of the total 13 districts are in the ‘green zone’, as they have scored above the state average. Kurnool, East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Prakasam, Nellore and Kadapa are the districts in the red zone. Kadapa district was at the bottom of the chart.

Speaking to TNM, Gandham Chandrudu, Collector of Anantapur district said he felt the initiative deserves to be replicated across the country. He said, “Evaluating districts and ranking them is a nice idea as it brings in competition among districts. This may lead to better performance. In this system, IVRS feedback from patients who are presently in hospitals and positive persons who are in COVID-19 Care Centres (CCC) and in home isolation is also considered as one of the many parameters. This is the best way to know how hospitals, CCC and the district administration is doing. It’s like a people’s referendum on the service provided by the administration.” Anantapur incidentally has one of the lowest active COVID-19 cases with 2137 patients, as of September 28. The district has recorded 479 deaths.

Srikakulam district which was in the red zone earlier and ranked at 11 out of a total of 13, has made it to the green zone by bagging the 7th rank according to the latest rankings. Srikakulam has 3881 active COVID-19 cases as of Monday and has recorded a total of 318 deaths.

Speaking to TNM, Srikakulam Collector J Nivas said, “The ratings are dynamic and are updated every day. It is helpful to identify areas that need improvement. Once identified, we can channelise our focus to those areas.”

Andhra has one of the highest COVID-19 cases in the country, with more than 6.78 lakh patients testing positive for the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. The state presently has 63,116 active cases as of Monday. Over 5700 persons have died due to COVID-19 in the state.

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