: Steps are being taken by the Tamil Nadu government to get the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) certification for 125 more hospitals in the State, Tamil Nadu Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar said.
Thirteen government hospitals in Tamil Nadu already have the NABH certification, he said on Friday at the inauguration of the 6th International Patient Safety Congress, a two-day event hosted by Apollo Hospitals. A policy is also being formulated to make it mandatory for hospitals to get NABH accreditation to better administer the Chief Minister’s comprehensive health insurance scheme so as to enable higher quality of healthcare to be delivered by such hospitals, he said.
Mr. Baskar said the two-day congress was aimed at ensuring high quality healthcare facilities were available easily and at an affordable cost for all sections of society. The health minister commended Prathap Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals, for his vision in setting up the group.
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The 7th Transforming Healthcare with IT Conference is also being held simultaneously and delegates and speakers, specialising in patient safety and tele-medicine, are participating.
Governor of Tamil Nadu Vidyasagar Rao, who participated in the joint plenary session on Friday evening, while highlighting ancient India’s position as a knowledge centre, said today, the country was again marching ahead in the field of healthcare. It was also a leader in information technology and had a demographic advantage, he said.
Visualising a potential future where computers could be diagnosing patients, supplemented by doctors, Lakshmi Narayan, vice-chairman, Cognizant Technology Services, said creating a patient diagnostic system would not be forbiddingly expensive and there were already signs of chips that duplicate the human brain. “It is human resources that will be a serious problem. Globally, there are not enough people in the medical and technology profession. If we invest enough in education and research, we will be able to produce the human resources,” he said.
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Earlier, joint managing director, Apollo Hospitals Group, Sangita Reddy unveiled a presentation on an integrated healthcare delivery system that visualises using technology for a seamless continuum of care.
International experts on patient safety including Andy Fisher, president of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth and Stephen Lieber, CEO, Healthcare Information and Management Systems, spoke of the challenges of patient safety and providing affordable, quality care.
Dr. Prathap C. Reddy spoke of the tsunami of non-communicable diseases on the horizon and urged everyone to do more. Preetha Reddy, Vice-chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Group, also spoke.
An abstract of papers was released by the Governor and the IPSC-Asian Patient Safety Awards, as well as the THIT-CHIME Awards, were distributed.