Max Healthcare, recently organized their 3rd Annual Patient Safety Conference at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

The two day conference took place from 1st and 2nd Feb, 2019. Present at the conference was Chief Guest Paula Wilson, President and CEO of Joint Commission Resources & Joint Commission International (JCI); USA. During the conference, Max Healthcare launched a white paper on Patient Safety and Clinical Excellence, which focuses on the key clinical and safety outcomes – showing year-on-year decline in complications, and higher patient satisfaction levels. Notable amongst these were declining hospital acquired infection rates, which are comparable to the outcomes of best institutions in the world.

Some of the key personalities from the healthcare industry who were present at the Conference included Dr. Sandeep Budhiraja, Conference Organizing Chairman, Director Max Institute of Internal Medicine, Clinical Director, Max Healthcare, India; Prof. (Dr.) Ruby Pawankar MD, President, APAAACI Dept. of Pediatrics, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan; Dr. Suhas Nafday, Associate Professor of Paediatrics and Director of New born Services and Chair, Neonatal Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, USA & Dr. Sujeet Jha, Director & HOD-Institute of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, Max Healthcare.

Patient Safety is the absence of preventable harm and the reduction of unnecessary harm to a patient in the process of healthcare. It is important to understand that patient safety and reduction of preventable medical error is one of the major challenges faced by clinicians and healthcare players around the world.

According to The World Health Organization, in developed countries, as many as 1 in 10 patients is compromised while receiving hospital care. Of every hundred 100 hospitalized patients, 7 in developed and 10 in developing countries will acquire health care-associated infections. For tertiary hospitals, patient safety should be a top priority. Strong health care teams, driven by SOPs reduce hospital acquired infection rates, put checks and balances in place to prevent mistakes, and ensure strong lines of communication between hospital staff, patients, and families. However, in India, not every hospital, especially in Tier II and III cities, is equipped to contain infections and ensure better patient safety norms. But, if every healthcare provider, consciously makes it a priority to secure the patient from preventable harm, safety levels can definitely improve over a period of time.

The two-day conference focused on how a strong focus on Patient Safety while delivering care, surveillance activities, reporting and improving continuously can reduce these risks. Leadership accountability and active staff and patient and family participation ensures continuous focus. Innovation in processes and technology will reduce the risks and incidents of adverse events.

At the event, Rajit Mehta, MD and CEO, Max Healthcare, shared, “Max Healthcare is committed to provide its patients with the best-in-class service, clinical expertise and a system managed and enabled by technology, that will address their needs and provide them with the best possible results. Our unflinching focus on Clinical Excellence over the past few years has ensured that the care we provide to our patients is comparable to the best in the world standards. Our robust set of processes and protocols are designed to ensure patient safety at all touch points. On an operational level, this translates into a strong Clinical Governance Framework covering aspects of empathetic patient care, clubbed with high quality medical standards which are uniformly practiced across all our network hospitals. We have also invested in building information technology systems, developing clinical Data and Analytical capabilities; and Research and Quality monitoring tools that layout a superlative quality framework for other hospitals to adopt and follow for better patient safety outcomes.”

The Clinical Governance Framework system helps in creating accountability to the organization and continuously improving the quality of their services. This also helps in safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish. Under this framework, 11 committees have been formed which focus on infection control, central mortality, emergency services, Neurosciences forum, clinical ethics, performance improvement and safety, and many more.   

Commenting on the occasion, Dr. Sandeep Budhiraja stated, “Healthcare players operate in a ‘High risk’ environment every day. Inherent to the industry, these risks include infections, adverse effects of medications, accidental injury, delay in emergency care, and other environmental risks such as fire, chemicals, and other disasters. The Conference aims to work towards a coordinated and focused movement to not just improve patient safety but to remove the probability of risks completely and attain 100% Patient Safety. We have an organization wide anti-microbial stewardship program that guides our doctors to prescribe the most optimum antibiotics for the patient. Our commitment is to reduce the burden of antibiotic resistance and ensure cost effective and safe antibiotic usage. We are the first organization in the country to use technology to track high risk patients, provide online and ready access to antibiotics and track positive cultures that trigger an alarm of a hospital acquired infection in vulnerable patients.”

He added, "Our unique Max Medical Excellence Framework provides us with tools and methods to build one of the best health care systems that protects patients, improves quality, and is generating excellent results. Our patient care teams have worked tirelessly to get us to this level.”

As part of the conference, several organizations shared over 9 successful patient safety case studies. These will be open for others to access, learn and implement in their organizations.