Under its formal engagement with the Telangana government’s Department of Health and Family Welfare on strengthening health systems, ACCESS Health India is working on two Quality of Care initiatives, aimed at improving the quality of healthcare services in the state. ACCESS Health conducted a feasibility study towards the implementation of the eICU concept in major public hospitals of the Telangana state. It was also a knowledge partner at a two day workshop on the implementation of the 5th edition of NABH Hospital standards at the Osmania Hospital in Hyderabad.
eICU
eICU is a concept of 24×7 monitoring systems designed to remotely treat critically ill patients with a focus on creating access to critical care closer to the people. It is a clinically proven program that has resulted in delivering quality patient care using technology, with reduced mortality and infection rates along with decrease in the average length of stay in the hospital, by bridging the gap in the availability of critical resources at district level. This concept reduces the burden on tertiary care hospitals by around 20 percent and 20-25 percent referrals across district medical college hospitals. This would also reduce the out of pocket expenditure incurred by patients.
ACCESS Health conducted a study to review the current status of ICUs at district hospitals, identify the feasibility andtraining requirements for the implementation ofeICU. Five hospitals were studied to identify the gaps and requirements. Based on key findings of the study, certain recommendations were made.
The eICU solution shall help delivery critical care to the district and area hospital providing access to patient at their door step and also ensure quality of service is delivery having the experts available all the time for care of patients, ensures continuity of care post hospitalisation at a reduced cost to patient there by reducing the out of pocket expenditure to the families .
Workshop on NABH standards
ACCESS Health India, with other partners, held a two days workshop for the faculty and staff of the Osmania General Hospital on December 3 and 4, 2020. The workshop was focused on training for the implementation of the fifth edition of the NABH hospital standards. The workshop was attended byheads of clinical departments and heads and members of the hospital administration, nursing, laboratory, medical supplies, and medical records department.
The workshop was inaugurated by Ms. Karuna Vakati, IAS, Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare. The sessions were attended by about 120 participants from the Osmania General Hospital. The idea was to start the initiative at a flagship institution like Osmania, being the oldest medical institute of the state. This is a joint initiative of the State Quality Assurance Unit, NHM, and Director of Medical Education of Telangana to kickstart the program. The program is supported by TATA Trusts as implementation partner and ACCESS Health International as training and Knowledge partner.
The workshop included orientation on the need for quality systems in health and its impact on clinical outcomes.Various quality methodologies, accreditation systems,and detailed discussion on NABH standards were taken up. This included access to care andinformation management in Health care.
An action plan was created towards the implementation of quality management system for hospitals. This includes the creation of mandatory committees, training programs that are required on ground and creation of standard operating procedures for outpatient services.
The National Quality Initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the National Quality Assurance Standards are being implemented in district hospitals but are not extended to large hospitals and teaching hospitals. Telangana state has the intent to extend quality assurance systems to large and teaching hospitals to drive its quality assurance program. The well-proven accreditation system by the Quality Council of India’s NABH is to be implemented as part of the quality assurance systems in these large and teaching hospitals of the state