Quality Council of India (QCI) has urged all the healthcare providers in the country to ensure that they follow all quality standard guidelines recommended by the government to avoid any complications that may compromise patients safety in the hospitals. This demand comes in the wake of the devastating fire at Amri Hospital that claimed lives of 190 people due  negligence on the part of the hospital.

With a view to ensure that all the hospitals in the country are sensitised about the importance of following all the quality and safety regulations, QCI had recently organised its first national quality conclave for the healthcare sector in Bangalore. The conclave focused on enhancing the quality in healthcare system of the country and deliberate on the issues that hinder in deliverance of quality service.

According to Rajendra Pratap Gupta, member, Healthcare-Quality Council of India, “It is not possible to provide accreditation to all the hospitals at once since its takes a lot of time as well as man power to do that. However it does not mean that the hospitals that are not under National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) should fall behind. We want the healthcare providers to understand that accreditation is important but at the same time it is not beyond quality. We want to ensure and change the way things are perceived today by stressing on keeping up with our motto to ensure quality healthcare in the country.”

He informed that as on date NABH, which is a constituent board of QCI has accredited nearly 140 hospitals and another 500 plus hospitals are preparing for accreditation in the country. The accreditation programme by NABH covers all the facets of patient safety including surgical safety, medication management, hospital infection and patient communication. The primary goal of accreditation is to ensure that the hospitals not only perform evidence based practices but also give importance to access, affordability, efficiency, quality and effectiveness of healthcare. However, he stressed that though approval is essential steps must be taken to look beyond accreditation to address and deal with quality issues in the present healthcare system.

The conclave that was co-organised by Bronze Certification of Lean by Simpler UK at M S Ramaiah Medical College & Hospital in Bangalore provided critical inputs pertaining to various facets of quality in healthcare.

“Quality in healthcare is of paramount importance as it directly impacts human lives and unlike quality in other sectors, quality in healthcare relates to a hospital monitoring and measuring clinical outcome on a continuous basis. Through this conclave, which will be a quarterly event, we want to bring in all the healthcare providers under the same roof so that we can exchange new ideas and deliberate on issues and challenges that will have a far reaching effect on the way healthcare system is dealt in the country,” Gupta said.

He further informed that looking at the quality issues in the East zone, QCI has decided to organise the second conclave in Kolkata in March next year followed by west and north zones respectively.