“Quality improvement within hospitals shouldn’t be aimed at acquiring NABH and JCI accreditation but it should be a continuous process to improve performance and care provision”, reiterated speakers at the National Conference ‘ABMH QIPS 2013’. The two day conference was organised by Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital, Pune on March 9-10, 2013 and attracted around 270 participants which included veteran industry speakers from renowned institutes like Apollo Hospital, New Delhi; Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital, Ahmedabad; Max Hospitals, New Delhi; Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai; Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai; Sancheti Hospital, Pune; Ruby Hall Clinic, Pune; Jehangir Hospital, Pune; Breach Candy, Mumbai; Saifee Hospital, Mumbai; Care Hospitals, Hyderabad; SRMC, Chennai; & AIMS, Kochi; Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai. Medical administrators, CEOs as well as medical and management students discussed various factors to deliver quality and safe care to the patients.
During the two-day conference, various approaches, practices and methodologies were shared amongst the delegates to bring about an improvement in healthcare delivery in their own hospitals, which in turn would result in rendering quality services for better patient care and safety. Paper and poster presentation sessions were also arranged and these enabled the participants to showcase various initiatives undertaken by different hospitals to improve their quality of patient care.
Emphasis on the following factors was given to deliver quality and safe care to patients:
- Importance of medical and non-medical quality indicators
- Importance of following the clinical pathways
- Importance of medication management in healthcare
- Group practice in hospital to provide improved patient care
- Quality improvement strategies and initiatives
- Failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) and root cause analysis (RCA)
- Privileging and credentialing of staffs
- Clinical audit
- Role of IT in quality and patient safety
- Importance of triaging in emergency medical services
- Conducting mortality and morbidity meetings in a right and efficient way
Day One began with a session on quality and patient safety in clinical practice conducted by Dr Umesh Gupta, Chairman & MD, Niramaya Hospitals, Delhi who laid emphasis on how hospitals should take every required step to maintain quality in its clinical practices to deliver quality healthcare to their patients. This session was followed by a session on Quality Indicators conducted by
Dr Tarang Gianchandani, Head, Quality and Patient Relations/Addl Medical Superintendent, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai. During this session Dr Gianchandani said, “We need quality indicators especially to document the quality of care you provide your patient”. Citing an example of how Jaslok Hospital improved quality in both clinical and non-clinical areas she pointed out that the bottom line for every hospital is patient safety because only if patients are satisfied then will the hospital’s revenue grow.
Further, Dr BK Trivedi, CEO, Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital (ABMH) in his session, emphasised on incorporating risk management techniques within a hospital. He also spoke about integrating pathways and preparing a road map to achieve quality oriented goals.
Dr Narottam Puri, Chairman, NABH &. President, Medical Strategies, Fortis Healthcare, New Delhi during the inaugural ceremony explained how quality became an integral part of the healthcare sector. He also went on to say that “Accreditation should not be the end point but it should be treated as a tool to achieve quality and excellence. For a long time we have concentrated on quantity, it’s time we lay emphasis on quality”. Further on, he also informed that quality improvement will soon be introduced within the curriculum in medical education.
Moving forward with the sessions Dr Anupum Sibal, Group Medical Director, Apollo Hospitals sharing his experience on achieving excellence within Apollo Hospitals, said that every big journey begins with a small step and that’s exactly how Apollo Hospital group approached while seeking to improve quality within their hospitals.
Drawing attention towards the role of pharmacists within hospitals in maintaining quality, Dr Uma Maheshwar Reddy highlighted the need to opt for medication therapy management within hospitals in order to increase efficiency within pharmacists.
A debate on whether a group practice can be a tool to improve patient care and safety or not was conducted and it highlighted many important advantages and disadvantages of group practice. Day One came to an end with the session conducted by Suresh Lulla and some more industry experts.
Day Two saw many interesting paper and poster presentations as well as some interesting insights given by industry experts.
Expressing her joy in conducting this fruitful conference, Rekha Dubey, COO, Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital told Express Healthcare, “The event was a grand success. It is a very good platform for all of us from the healthcare sector to review the current status of quality and safety in healthcare programmes in India and identify strategies to improve the quality and safety in healthcare and sensitise the policy makers, health managers and health professionals on the concepts and strategies on quality and patient safety in India. We hope to come up with various such quality improvement initiatives in near future to improve the healthcare delivery of the major hospitals in Pune and the other national hospitals”.
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