Chronic disease is a general term for diseases with insidious onset, long incubation period, long and slow course of disease, delayed healing, lack of exact biological evidence, and unclear indication of “cure”. Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes are important restrictive factors for the improvement of human health and life expectancy. Chronic disease management refers to chronic non-communicable diseases and their risk factors for regular and continuous testing, evaluation and comprehensive intervention in the management of medical behavior and process, main content, including early screening for slow disease, slow disease risk prediction, early warning and comprehensive intervention, and the integrated management of the patient group, and evaluation of the effect of slow disease management Therefore, chronic disease management can improve the quality of life of patients with chronic diseases. At present, more patients suffer from multiple chronic diseases. However, the hospital’s existing chronic disease management is carried out according to the department. This means that a patient needs to go to more than one department for a chronic disease treatment.

Health and Economic Costs of Chronic Diseases

Chronic diseases have significant health and economic costs in the world. Preventing chronic diseases, or managing symptoms when prevention is not possible, can reduce these costs.

Over 20 per cent of the country’s population suffers from at least one of the non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which are estimated to cost India $ 6.2 trillion during the period 2012-2030, according to a report released today. As per the World Health Organization, non-communicable diseases or chronic diseases, such as cancer, heart ailments, respiratory diseases and diabetes, kill 38 million people globally every year.

The advocacy paper –‘NCDs in the Development Agenda’– has been prepared by global non-profit organization Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD) with technical support from the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC), an agency under the National Health Mission.