Chandigarh: In order to check the mushrooming of sub-standard hospitals and nursing homes in the country and playing with the health of the common consumer, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has now come out with standardisation guidelines for health care facilities.
The standard covers the guidelines on access, assessment and continuity of care, patient rights and education, care of patient, management of medication, hospital infection control, continuous quality improvement, responsibility of management, facility management and safety, human resource management, information management system of health care facilities.
These standards briefly emphasise that health care facilities define and prominently display the services that it can provide. It should have a well defined registration and admission process. Emergency patients should receive life-stabilising treatment, if resources are available or transferred appropriately to other health care facilities where care of such patients can be undertaken.
Patients and their families shall also have a right to get the information on the expected cost of the treatment. The safety aspects for the patients and the employees shall be as per the relevant rules and regulations.
They shall have a complete and accurate medical record for every patient and every medical record shall have a unique identifier.
The health care provider shall have a multidisciplinary infection control committee to have effective infection control. It should be managed in an ethical manner. A suitably qualified and experienced individual shall head the health care facilities.
Officials in BIS said that many elements addressed in the standards are based on Quality Management System. The standards may be implemented for health care facilities on the lines of quality management system certification.
It may be noted that the Health and Family Department of Government of India is also actively considering bringing “The Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill 2007”.
This will provide a mechanism to monitor unchecked scrupulous growth of unidentified health care facilities in the private sector.
Source: TNS