Patient Safety: JC, NABH, NABL

JCAHO has officially been renamed JC. Short and sweet to remember. All stakeholders from patients to healthcare providers can now benefit from the easy to use, simple guidelines. I like the Patient Safety  area very much. [ https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics/patient-safety/ ]

Quality in healthcare delivery is not an option but essential. Even the healer can be a patient at times and that is when it hurts really hard. Medical equipment, technology, software are tightly regulated to assure 'Primum Non Nocere' - physician do no harm. Quality is a mindset beautifully exemplified by Toyota corporation with their TQM-total quality management philosophy. For a Japanese company to learn automobile technology from USA and Europe and replicate it in the Japan of 1945 that was emerging from the second world war with a clean reset was a moment. The Japanese penchant fro perfection be it in the art of tea making, ikibana (flower arrangement) or calligraphy flowed into industry. Quality was the single big factor which took Japan to world stage and compete with the likes of GM-General Motors, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi renowned car makers. TQM ensures quality assurance throughout starting from sourcing components from many OEM-original equipment manufacturers, to shop floor assembly, delivery and service. Medical equipment have top quality, does the system have even a fraction of that? Fact is no. If we get to bottom of the issue, it truly turns out to be gordian knot.

JC [https://www.jointcommission.org/], QCI-NABH [ https://www.nabh.co/ ], QCI-NABL [ https://nablwp.qci.org.in/ ] accreditation assures the end user of TQM in healthcare.

Life can be so ephemeral - Death and beyond

 A few days ago I got a call from a person whom I hold in high esteem. His adult daughter had just passed away at 0230 hrs early morning. There was history of diarrhoea for three days after consuming hotel food, delivered by a food delivery company. Few questions kept popping up in my mind, after helping him face this unbearable loss and navigating a quagmire of unnecessary and repetitive processes. Corruption rears its ugly head to benefit from an emotionally labile condition that prevails. Looking at the workflow involved from the time death is suspected, multiple points of improvement were obvious to improve, all the way to support for grief.

1. Role of emergency services
2. Can food poisoning or Cholera kill in a short time (few days)
3. The Death identification, confirmation, certification process in India
4. MLC - medico legal case implications for death at home, autopsy procedures
5. Funeral arrangements
6. Grief/ Bereavement counselling