The Manipal Hospital in Bangalore with more than 30 departments has chalked out a strategy for better patient care performance in the wake of healthy competition among hospitals mushrooming here in the country. To begin with, it has tied with up with a European healthcare consultant -EPOS to prepare the groundwork for meeting global standards in quality healthcare service. It has identified 15 sub-groups within the hospital services, where areas of improvement are marked out. The hospital is also in the process of earmarking Rs.18 to Rs.20 crore for purchase of the advanced medical equipments in the next two months apart for investing in human resources.

"Our primary objective is to bench mark JCHO standards within the next three years and put together a quality model for a clean and patient-friendly healthcare facility in the country," R Basil, CEO, Manipal Hospital told Pharmabiz.com. The only differentiator in the wake of such stiff healthy competition for healthcare providers is 'care'- pre-post operative, hygiene and personalised service with quality consciousness, he added.

The hospital has also taken a strategic decision to mobilise its resources internally by hiring two external consultants for training staff in day-to-day housekeeping operation, where the importance of clean kitchens and engineering service maintenance are highlighted. It has introduced the concept of a Triage nurse in the hospital reception to guide patients on whom they need to consult for a particular ailment. There is also a lobby co-ordinator to assist patients on the procedures of registration and billing. Surprise ward checks are conducted to keep tabs of performance of nurses and support staff and the extent of cleanliness maintained in the rooms. It is also in the process of creating a valet parking option considering the inflow of patients. "We have increased the hospital charges by a marginal five percent," informed Basil.

As a corporate hospital offering diagnosis and treatment in general medicine specialisations, oncology and nephrology, several poor patients access the facility for treatment. It provides a 30 per cent discount for CT Scan and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to police and fire service personnel.

Going by the increasing cancer cases in the State and country, Manipal Hospital is now focussing on oncology therapy where free treatment is given to poor patients. It will start a separate Corpus Fund for the unaffordable cases. Substantial discounts are given to central and state government officials. The oncology department is now full fledged with high-density radiation equipment. The department is headed by Dr. Rama Mohan Tiwari specialist, head and neck oncology and it would soon have a haematology oncologist and surgeons for bone marrow transplant.

At the department of Nephrology, around 1300 dialysis are conducted in a month, is claimed to be the highest in the country. Other niche service areas are comprehensive trauma care where a toll free number 1062 is offered to citizens of Bangalore to access any emergency care, apart from Poison Control Centre and a specialist for anthrax diagnosis and treatment. The hospital is known for paediatric endocrinology, genetics and diabetes.

With a hospital boom in Bangalore, Manipal Hospital, which was started on March 15, 1991, finds its strength in its ethical practises, quality of medical consultants, offering poor patients an access to super speciality corporate facility and initiating continuing education programmes, pointed out Basil.

The hospital has commenced DNB courses in all specialties, MS and MD programmes in surgery and general medicine are open to medical colleges of Kathmandu where academic training is conducted here in the hospital and students have to appear for examinations in Kathmandu. Continuing medical education programmes is an ongoing effort where exposure to latest microsurgery and laparoscopy procedures is made.

According to Basil, the overall performance of Manipal Hospital has been growing with a substantial increase in the number of in-patients and outpatients. Reluctant to release growth figures, he indicated that there has been a growth of more than 30 percent compared to last year. It is also adding more services to meet the growing demands of healthcare in the city and country.

Another major achievement of his tenure as CEO for the last 140 days has been the creation of a culture- patient-friendly and involve doctors to monitor the flaws during weekly meetings and a quarterly assessments by the CEO himself. "Five marketing executives, along with specialists, nurses, technicians, social workers, patient relation executives and management trainees are hired to improve the overall performance of the hospital," Basil added.

For the future, Basil aims at hiring of senior consultants in all branches of general medicine and surgery and increasing the bed-strength, which will include the setting up of suites for affluent patients and VIPs. It is a challenge to have more senior specialists where loyalty to the hospital is maintained in the wake of the medical care boom, he noted.