NewAgeWockhardt Hospital initiates ‘Mumbai Healthcare Forum’

The symposium also witnessed the launch of ‘Mumbai Healthcare Forum’, an initiative to promote quality in healthcare organisations

The symposium on “Sustaining Quality in Healthcare” served as a platform for an idea exchange for many medical experts, CEO’S, medical directors and administrators from multispeciality hospitals, across the city who had gathered at the event hosted by New Age Wockhardt Hospital on June 10, 2015. The symposium also witnessed the launch of ‘Mumbai Healthcare Forum’, an initiative to promote quality in healthcare organisations.   

Besides the presentations by keynote speakers like Dr K K Kalra, CEO, NABH and Dr GirdharGyani, Director General (CEO), AHPI, a panel discussion was organised, featuring international experts from ‘Partners Medical International’ sharing their views on sustainability based healthcare delivery, operations, quality management, engagement and alignment, bringing in the transparency and standardisation in hospital management. 

The symposium witnessed participation from multispeciality hospitals like Jaslok, Breach Candy, Fortis Hospital Mulund, Nanavati Hospital and many more private and government hospitals sharing their views on the challenges faced by hospital administration on quality and compliance issues. While addressing the event,DrKalra, laid emphasis on quality improvement as an important component for hospitals and healthcare systems. He informed that among the 80,000 Hospitals across the country, only 545 of them have been accreditation. “One of the challenges is bridging the knowledge gap between the quality and compliance functions of Hospitals. Achieving the goal of better healthcare outcomes will require focus on quality management and standardization process. Hospitals should strive to work together to create awareness among their respective stake holders, identify problems and challenges and strive to achieve developmental change,” said Dr Kalra.

Agreeing with DrKalra, Dr Gyani, stressed upon the apathy of Indian Healthcare sector. He said, “Lack of support from the government has resulted in Indian Hospitals failing to follow the quality norms. Engagement of leaders is the key to enhance the quality management services. It is essential to adopt quality management tools, healthcare organizations can build-up the capacity through training and consulting organizations. It is also important to promote recognition system for healthcare quality providers.” 

Meanwhile, international healthcare experts from Partners Medical International delved into topics on patient safety and raising hospital performance measures in recent years, growing out of the movement for improved quality and patient satisfaction, greater accountability and transparency.“Quality care is less expensive care. It is better, more efficient, and less wasteful. It is the right care, at the right time, every time. It should mean that far fewer patients are patients are harmed or injured. It is important that healthcare leaders and professionals should focus on quality and patient safety in ways they never used before because the economics of quality have changed substantially,” said; Dr John Helfrick, Partners Medical International.

Other speakers included, Dr Patricia Folcarelli, Sr. Director of Patient Safety, Beth Israel Deaconess medical Centre, who spoke about the changing paradigms in patient safety and Suresh Lulla, Founder & MD, Qimpro Consultant emphasised on the role of continual quality improvement in healthcare.

The session ended with New Age Wockhardt Hospital announcing an array of activities to be undertaken by the ‘Mumbai Healthcare Quality Forum’ in the coming months. “The healthcare forum is an attempt to engage healthcare professionals in quality healthcare, innovative healthcare practices and a robust hospital-to-hospital learning network,” informed Dr Parag Rindani, AVP &Head, New Age Wockhardt Hospitals,South Mumbai.

“The forum will act as a foundation for numerous quality efforts already underway, across the country by building a powerful network to expand the transformation of health care practices for Hospitals,”he added.