For the first time, administrators of Government Medical College hospitals are being asked to undergo professional training in hospital administration, so that they can manage the hospitals better and give the patients a more happy experience.
The series of training programmes are being run by the State Health System Resource Centre (SHSRC), the Health department’s technical support wing.
“Hospitals are unique organisations and running it requires multifarious skills. It is a 24-hour job, which entails not just management of daily affairs, but anything from a clogged toilet to medical emergencies or mass casualities. A patient leaving the hospital remembers not just the excellent medical care that he received, but the entire hospital experience, including the cleanliness of the wards and the friendliness of the staff. It is this realisation that has corporate hospitals as well as major government institutions like the AIIMS or AFMC engaging professional hospital administrators to run the show,” says S. K. Jawahar, the Dy. Medical Supdt at SCTIMST and the President of Federation of Hospital Administrators, Kerala.
Running a government hospital can be a tricky business and those sitting at the helm of affairs can get hauled up for audit objections or vigilance enquiries if they are not careful about the procedures and legal aspects.
The training programme at SHSRC thus covers areas like service matters, clearance of audit files, medical records management, managing benevolent schemes and insurance programmes of the government, crisis management, drugs and equipment procurement, grievance redressal, store purchase, e-governance, sexual harassment issues at workplace and media management. The sessions are led by bureaucrats as well as experts from the respective fields in the private sector.
“Hospital administration turned out to a tougher job than I expected. Being a clinician helps me understand many things better but as an administrator, it is not very easy to please everyone,” says M. S. Sharmad, a neuro surgeon and the Superintendent of Thiruvananthapuram Govt Medical College
The two week training session at SHSRC on hospital management has been an eye opener, he says.
.
The training programme will be a regular and continuous affair and all top and middle -level administrators in Medical Colleges and Health Service hospitals will go through the sessions.
