The recent mishap at a well-known hospital in Eastern India has brought the loopholes of our system out in the open. Even after being an NABH accredited hospital, the institution failed to avert such a situation. After every such incident, we see people pointing fingers at each other. In fact, if you look closely, maybe there is more than one party guilty. Our Cover Story this time tries to find out who actually should be held responsible for such incidences and how they can be averted in future.
Outsiders can only assume, it is only the industry people that can give a pure insight. Hence, let us have a look at what does the various industry experts feel about the incident...
Who is liable?Largely, the hospital management is made liable for such occurrences. Dr. G. Bakthavathsalam, Chairman, K.G. Hospital & Post Graduate Medical Institute, Coimbatore, says, “The hospital management is wholly responsible to ensure that the hospital presents itself safe and secure for the patients, visitors and employees. Towards this end, the hospital management should conform to all requirements of fire safety laws and provisions and ensure that everything to protect the patients, employees, doctors and visitors is in place.”
Various agencies are involved in granting NOC’s not only for hospitals but also to malls, cinema theatres, residential complexes and so on. Before giving these NOC’s there are various norms and standards to be followed by the organisation. For instance, various equipment to be installed, various monitoring met
Critical care services (CCS) form the backbone of any modern hospital. The scope of services of the hospital is more or less dependent on the scope of services of the CCS. Planning for critical care services therefore should start along with the planning of the hospital. The CCS Director should take up a central role in planning, designing and implementation of the CCS.
The planning cycleThe planning of the CCS should begin by initiating a planning cycle. The planning cycle brings together all aspects of planning of CCS into a coherent, unified process. Planning within this structure helps to ensure that everything is fully considered, well focused, resilient, practical and cost-effective. You must also learn from the mistakes you make, and feed this back into future planning and decision making.
Starting up new CCS Starting up new CCS is an opportunity to expand the hospital services. This is the time when the CCS lead should make a formal assessment of the current situation and the where they want to head. This process is to chart the objectives and crystallize actions directed towards a for
The recent fire tragedy at a well-known hospital has wrenched our hearts and given us much to think about.
As leaders and managers, many of us are metaphorically fighting fires every day of our working lives. Observe any hospital on a typical working day. You may witness various fires being put out. Two key nurses left, medico legal hassle at the emergency department, payment denied by the TPA on account of insufficient paperwork, patients complaining about the doctor being late, an equipment breaking down, etc. are a few examples of common fires that managers deal with.
Look for the fire withinWhen I ask the managers about these fires, they instantly point outwards. They tell me how the patients are too demanding, how staff loyalty is at an all time low, how the regulating agencies have become corrupt, etc. Rarely does somebody say- ‘I think I could have prevented that’. Courage, like commonsense, is a rare trait.
An example that comes to mind is of an administrator of a hospital in Bangalore. The patients of the hospital had complained about unclean water in the private room taps. The administrato
Dr. K Ravindranath, Chairman & Managing Director, Global Hospitals, is perhaps one of the most relaxed healthcare professionals I know. Even after ... 
