Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Hospitals perform better for accreditation

Thiruvananthapuram: The State government's initiative to seek NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers) accreditation for selected government hospitals across the State has helped put in place systems, protocols and standard operating procedures in healthcare institutions. The move has directly helped in providing improved quality of care.

“There is a definite change in the attitude of doctors and other employees in hospitals which are going through the NABH accreditation process. A lot of positive developments – infrastructural and administrative – are being implemented in the hospitals for the first time. Patient inflow in many of these hospitals has gone up tremendously,” K. Sandeep, Senor Consultant, Quality Assurance, National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), said. Dr. Sandeep was talking about the experience of implementing NABH standards in the government sector at a national workshop on the subject, organised by the Federation of Hospital Administrators and Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology here on Saturday.

It was in August 2008 that the State government signed the MoU with the Quality Council of India for accreditation of select Government hospitals — one in each district. The quality improvement process for accreditation started in September 2009, with the support of the NRHM.

“The government took the initiative as the out-of-pocket expense on health care was skyrocketing. The government hospitals were unable to deliver quality care. About 65 per cent of curative care taking place in the private sector,” Dr. Sandeep said.

The process was initiated by forming a core team for supervising the quality assessment drive and setting up committees for every department. The groundwork began by developing manuals — about 65 were drafted — and Standard Operating Procedures for various departments in hospitals. Sensitising the hospital staff about the quality drive and keeping them motivated was the next challenge.

“For the first time, patient safety was put at the centre of all developments in the hospitals. Patient rights charter was developed and displayed in all hospitals. We collected the infection rate and C-section rates in all hospitals and set about corrective action. Protocols, systems and processes were put in place – from patient registration till discharge, emergency medicine, infection control, medical records maintenance, supply of medicines in wards, biomedical waste management, labour room care,” he said. Renovation was also carried out in the selected hospitals, with NRHM investing about Rs.3 crore in each hospital.

The hospital staff were given training and disaster management drills to handle emergencies. In February, General Hospital, Ernakulam, became the first ever government hospital in the State to secure NABH accreditation. At present, eight hospitals in Pathanamthitta, Kollam, Thrissur, Malappuram, Kannur, Palakkad and Kasaragod and preparing for pre-assessment; selected hospitals in Idukki, Wayanad and Institute for Communicative and Cognitive Neuro Sciences, Shornur are in the pre-assessment stage. The W&C hospitals in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode and the Chertala taluk hospital at Alappuzha are preparing for NABH assessment.

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