Patient safety in India

The recent Editorial in The National Medical journal of India, discussed about the patient safety in India. The hospitals are now busy places with so many patients undergoing many different treatments and tests. It is very essential that all the precautions are taken in to account to avoid the problems or complications. It is important to realize that hospitals and members of the profession are held accountable for the short falls in care.The 1995 Supreme Court declaration bringing hospitals under the purview of the Consumers Protection Act (CPA) of 1986 was possibly the start of the movement for the safety of the patient in India. The WHO launched the World Alliance on Patient Safety (WAPS) to help stimulate further research to ascertain the extent and root causes of the problem and, more importantly, develop innovative solutions to reduce the burden of harm due to unsafe healthcare. Much progress has since been made, in the past decade, but it is equally clear from some high-profile instances, for example, in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK that a lot more needs to be done (http://www.midstaffsinquiry.com/). India is a signatory to the WAPS and institutions such as the Quality Council of India have been set up. There are also other initiatives, such as the National Initiative on Patient Safety at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Indian Confederation for Healthcare Accreditation, to promote action. We need to build on these developments. We could start with a five-pronged approach.
1. Lobbying and assisting institutions and the government with the creation of systems for recording, learning and reporting on the quality of services and adverse events in a ‘balanced’ manner (neither too heavy-handed, nor too light), and making it possible to set up such systems given the concerns of such documentation.
2. Accelerating the implementation of proven patient safety interventions, such as the Global Patient Safety Challenges work on hand hygiene and surgical checklist, andTHE NATIONAL MEDICAL JOURNAL OF INDIA VOL. 25, NO. 3, 2012 131 by the introduction of mandatory compliance with ‘Never Events’ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4933949/List-of-eight-blunders-the-NHSmust-never-commit-released-by-watchdog.html).
3. Empowering patients to question and work with professionals, for example through the Patient Safety Alliance (www.patientsafetyalliance.in), which also draws on the work being done by the Health Education Library for Patients (www.healthlibrary.com).
4. Capacity-building through education and training at the undergraduate level by using the WHO curriculum on patient safety and for established professionals through distance learning, for example through the  people’s Open Access Education Initiative (www.peoples-uni.org).
5. Undertaking further research by building on the work started by the INCLEN.

So, patient safety is clearly a major public health issue in India, and some would argue that the problem is likely to be much more serious, given the concerns about counterfeit drugs, faulty medical equipment, unsafe blood banks or unregulated organ donation, for example. There is lot of work to do in the coming years in this direction!!!