Best Practices Booklet Launch Event at King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
This blog is coauthored by Sujata Rao, Gayatri Emani, Santhosh Kraleti, and Vikrant Prabhakar of ACCESS Health India. They write about how the King George Hospital Quality Improvement team came together to drive success through quality improvement. King George Hospital is part of the Safe Care, Saving Lives program.
The Safe Care, Saving Lives program is an initiative by ACCESS Health International in collaboration with the State Insurance Trusts. The program is designed to increase newborn survival through improved quality of healthcare services by creating procedures and setting benchmarks to prevent neonatal deaths from perinatal asphyxia, sepsis, and complications of prematurity. The program improves reliability and standardizes care delivery processes. The collaborative works in hospitals in Andhra Pradesh, supported by the Dr. NTR Vaidya Seva Trust, and in Telangana, supported by the Aarogyasri Healthcare Trust. The collaborative works on bridging the gap between the guidelines issued by the government and the best possible quality by helping the facilities develop innovative ideas within available resources.The government issued guidelines are implemented in both public and private hospitals.
During the first year of the collaborative, King George hospital had several innovative ideas for disseminating information and educational material to patients and providers. ACCESS Health supported the hospital in developing and scaling up these informational materials into printable format. With the “teach all, learn all” collaborative methodology, the Medical Superintendent of King George hospital and ACCESS Health team organized an event to launch these materials. The event generated visibility for the collaborative among elected representatives. Dr. P. Haribabu, a member of parliament in Vizag, and Dr. Vishnu Kumar Raju, a member of the legislative assembly in Vizag, chaired the launch event. Honorable dignitaries, the Medical Superintendent, and experts from ACCESS Health launched the booklet and posters. Quality teams from King George Hospital and Manipal Hospital presented the quality improvement work they had undertaken with the support of ACCESS Health.
The hospital teams explained the paradigm shift in their approach to clinical processes. They explained how they had started looking at each activity as a series of interlinked processes. They also explained how they had begun measuring the processes and how an improvement in the process transpired into a tangible improvement in outcomes.
The launch also provided a platform for hospitals staff to share difficulties they are facing with policy makers. The members of the hospital shared their concerns about inadequate human resources at the hospital. The lawmakers agreed to expedite this matter at the policy makers level.
Dr. P. Haribabu reiterated that there was no shortage of funds. He explained that the only issue was effective utilization of available resources. He requested that the hospitals should focus more on improving quality because it is an integral part of every care delivery process. Dr. Haribabu said, “We cannot say that care has been delivered unless it adheres to quality standards”. He also added that the team should put in all efforts to analyze their data and convert knowledge into practice. He also sanctioned a solar unit for a labor room and asked the Additional District Medical and Health Officer to have it installed as soon as possible. Dr. P. Haribabu requested ACCESS Health and Dr. Madhusudan Babu, Medical Superintendent to share periodical reports on the progress and outcome of quality improvement efforts at the facility.
Dr. Vishnu Kumar Raju explained that King George Hospital received an additional one hundred sixteen nurses after a lot of effort. He assured all the hospital staff, that all of the elected people representatives would make all possible efforts to address human resource and equipment shortages. In the end, Dr. Madhusudan Babu, on behalf of the staff of King George Hospital, thanked all of the dignitaries and Dr. Santhosh, Dr. Thirumala, Dr. Pradeep Reddy, Ms. Sujata, Ms. Gayatri, and Dr. Sandesh from ACCESS Health for organizing the workshop and for supporting and guiding the staff towards improving quality of care. The dignitaries expressed the pressing need for a focus on improved processes and outcomes in care provided at government hospitals and bridging the gap between knowledge and practice.
The achievement is led by Dr. Padmalatha, Dr. Sandeep, Dr. Sindhura, Dr. Saradabai,, Sister Kumari, Sister Nagalakshmi, Dr. Sandhya, and Dr. Neelima from King George Hospital Vizag, and supported by Gayatri Emani and Sujata Rao of Safe Care, Saving Lives.