Tuberculosis (TB) poses a massive global burden with 1.6 million deaths in 2021. India accounts for 28% of global TB cases and 36% of deaths, despite the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) in the public sector. Private sector engagement is crucial as 50-80% of patients seek private healthcare.

ISB MIHM as part of a study funded by  Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) estimated the impact of their two pilot programmes focused on home-based service delivery in collaboration with TATA-1mg from July 2020 to June 2022. These aimed to enhance TB care in the private sector through home-based services under the Public-Private Societal Alignment (PPSA) model. The Drug Delivery pilot provided doorstep medication services in Gujarat, while the Service and Drug Delivery pilot in Faridabad offered additional services like doorstep sample collection, report delivery, and counseling.

Through this study, we assessed TATA-1mg's impact on private-sector TB care quality, quantity, and cost under the PPSA model through programmatic data analysis, qualitative study, and cost analysis.

The results from the two pilots show promising results. Considering India’s high TB burden, further exploration and refinement of such models to leverage the expertise of for-profit organization to add or outsource services aimed at efficient management of TB are essential. Our study findings suggest the potential benefits of engaging with such organizations for TB care, with cost implications to be considered. 

We found that while the Drug Delivery pilot resulted in better health outcomes, largely due to the efforts of the existing JEET personnel. On the other hand, despite a lower per-case cost, the impact of the Drug and Service model was not clear, possibly due to outsourcing of on-field services such as counselling, sample collection, and more.