Qualimed Healthcare

Dr Farah Deeba

Qualimed started in 2012 with a mission to make an impact in the crucial area of medical quality which impinges on all stakeholdes, the patients, HCO and the community at large by partnering with organisations in enhancing the quality and effectiveness of healthcare. From two employees it has expanded to over ten today providing the whole gamut of medical quality services, ranging from establishing/documenting/ training and implementing the basic quality standards, to providing guidance for accreditation/empanelment of NABH/NABL/JCI /CGHS/ECHS, as well as guidance on business excellence models/lean/Six Sigma Implementation.

Vision

Quality healthcare will always be defined by meeting and exceeding customer expectations. The pursuit for excellence will be an essential component for differentiating the successful healthcare organisations.

Sevices provided include:-

(a) Sharp supervised gap analysis of existing healthcare facilities.

(b) Training and implementation-

1. NABH JCI ISO standards
2. Lean / Six Sigma
3. Documentation
4. Internal audit
5. Legal/ Statutory compliances
6. Formulating policies/ procedures
7. Communication workshops

(c) Implementation

1. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
2. Maintenance of records
3. Management review
4. HR Policies
5. Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

(d) Consultancy

1. Fire safety
2. Biomedical waste management
3. Legal and statutory guidance
4. All other aspects of medical quality as per scope of services

The team members have experience in implementing innovative, effective organisational and strategic planning and execution skills with great success and attaining organisational economy in terms of cost and efficiency at both, micro and macro level. At the micro level, the team has demonstrated excellence in setting up practices, policies and methods in medical administration, medical treatment, patient service, quality assurance, and public relations activities thereby working towards various accreditation requirements and quality in medicine. True to its tagline ‘Raising the Bar in Medical Quality’ the organisation aims to raise the bar in medical quality thereby providing benefits to patients, healthcare organisations, medical fraternity and the community. It has expansion plans in terms of infrastructure, capacity building, enhancing training programmes, process refinement in multi-departmental level and bringing in innovation and best patient practices.

Medical quality aspects

1. Patient safety is a critical component of quality care, and is one of the most challenging issues in healthcare today. The aim of providing quality medical care, in distressing times of disaster, where saving of life, essential organs and limbs is of prime importance, appears not only daunting and far fetched affair, but also entails a great deal of planning, training and implementation.
2. However, at such very times of disaster management when resouces are stretched and scarce with urgency, the need for effective allocation and measurable outcome is all the more essential. The sound principles of quality management implemented at the various stages of disaster will ensure better outcomes. The Government of India through its manifold contributers in the field of medical quality need to be geared up to these facts to provide better disaster disease outcomes for the benefit of patients.
3. Human error is a fact in healthcare, more so in a scenario of disaster and we all must be educated on what to be watchful of regarding things that might go wrong. Many countries in the world have already recognised process mapping and improvement as an important aspect in disaster management, and are building ways and approaches to improve the outcomes and quality of care. Healthcare professionals also need to be educated on the principles and concepts of patient safety.
4. To illustrate the role that medical quality can play at various stages of disaster scenario, some essential aspects of providing seamless, faster, better and organised care are outlined below:-

Pre disaster planning

The paradigm that, “The more you sweat in peace, the less you will bleed in war” is equally applicable to preparing for disasters. The aspects which deserve attention are:

(a) Decision making – Inclusion of a medical quality professional in areas of decision making in Disaster Management Committee, Medical Council of India and Regional / National Health forums

(b) Treatment plans – Use of evidence-based medicine and clinical practice guidelines in formulating national disaster management treatment plans and implementation guidelines, based on best practices

(c) Planned checklists – Development of user friendly checklists / tools/ scorecards – To facilitate quick deployment of resources like man and material

(d) Standardised protocols – To develop standardised protocols for treatment applicable as follows;

1. Onsite at the site of location of disaster
2. During transport of patients
3. Offsite at the referral hospitals

(e) Resource allocation It is essential that man and material is predesignated in order to ensure that a right person is earmarked for the right job and he knows the role to be performed at crucial times and chaos is averted.

Monitoring the disaster

Once disaster strikes, whilst provision of prompt and efficient care, is of utmost importance and is handled by the operational team, a medical quality representative would play a very vital role. He would perform the functions of process mapping, filling in various checklists, deploying of essential toolkit, all providing critical inputs and followup leading to process improvement and delivery of better patient care.

It is imperative to identify error pathways in order to ameliorate or circumvent them and this can be achieved by the inputs generated by the Medical Quality Representative, Post disaster -Recovering and learning from the disaster. The hospital need to keep patients safe and learn valuable emergency preparedness and management lessons in the process. This goal could be achieved by the following means

(a) The process mapping reports are studied in details to detect gaps, differentiate value added steps from non-value added steps and issue process improvement guidelines,

(b) Study of the checklists/ toolkits / scorecards, to analyse deviation from protocol, determining root cause analysis and implementing corrective and preventive actions

(c) Post disaster audit of care provided against pre decided parameters.

All disasters whether manmade or natural lead to human suffering and create needs that the victims cannot alleviate without assistance. Thus, various organisation pitch in help at national/international level. Each of them have different objectives, expertise, and resources to offer, and several hundred may become involved in a single major disaster, hence the need for standardising, seamless delivery of care based on evidence based guidelines, process mapping, process improvement and well coordinated efforts to avoid further chaos and confusion both during and after the disaster and better patient care outcomes. Quality patient care provision and improvement, in a disaster situation, therein forms the key to prompt patient management and better outcomes.

Implementation of well established principles of medical quality can vastly aid in the veritable goal of delivering timely effective care under the most demanding of circumstances. Quality is a journey and not a destination, and needs focussed and concerted efforts by one and all.