Deloitte today announced it is making available a playbook,to help district administrations address the rising threat of the Omicron COVID variant. Theprotocols outlined in the playbook can enable governments to quickly scale the health care support and resources required to address surges in COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) cases. This‘plug and play’ modelrecommendssupervised home-based carethat communities can easily adopt to assist those who are medically able to recover at home.

The playbook builds upon thelearningsgained from NitiAayog, “SanjeevaniPariyojana”, a supervised, virtual home care initiative launched inKarnal, Haryana, India in May 2021 as well as Deloitte’s experience in South Africa.During the peak of the second wave, the Government of Haryana and Deloitte initiative had helpedthe people of Karnal quickly access healthcare at home, effectively bringing the fatality rate down by 50 percent. Over 90 percent patients were treated at home or at isolation centres,which helped reduce the pressure on the district hospital, thereby preserving beds for the critically ill.After its success in India, the “SanjeevaniPariyojana”initiative was also adopted in South Africa and Southeast Asia.

“The Deloitte playbook helps bring supervised healthcare to people at home, thereby ‘extending the medical ward.’ When implemented, it brings much needed medical care and resources to rural, under-served and hard to reach communities,” said Punit Renjen, Deloitte Global CEO. He added, “This ‘fit-for-purpose’ approach will yield a model that enables broader health equity with access to critical health resources. I am convinced that wider adoption of the model will address a long-termhealthcare challenges at reduced costs.This is true for India and the world.”