Our mission is to bring healthcare of international standards within the reach of every individual Dr Rupali Basu, CEO, Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, Kolkata & CEO-Eastern Region, Apollo Hospitals Group speaks on the facilities and services offered by the hospital. Excerpts.
Which are the key issues that contribute to the confirmed success of Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals (AGH), Kolkata? 'Hospital' as a service industry is a quite dynamic and experience-centric, emotion dependent and faith driven organisation. One way it is highly technical and on the other it is very much people dependent. Therefore it will be quite impossible to determine a single success factor of a hospital. We consider timely decision-making processes as the key success factor, technology upgradation and first mover advantage is the success factor of Apollo Hospital or getting highly talented clinicians from each and every corner of the world may be considered as the key success factor. But I personally consider that high-end medical care with tender loving care can create a difference and set a benchmark in the community.
When we are discussing about the key success factors, we should not ignore business intelligence (BI) integrator to execute smooth hospital management. It helps us to decrease cost and maximise control. In our hospital, we have taken lean six sigma improvement projects and implement them into the ongoing hospital operations and enhancements. There is a highly logical implication of the team approach. In a summary, there is now substantial scope to create experience and I personally consider the same as the greatest branding tool. What are the national and international accreditations won by the hospital? The hospital has a number of National and International accreditations. The Gold standard of Quality Healthcare Organization- is the Joint Commission International
by HASSAP, and the Nursing College is accredited by ISO9001-2008 etc. So from patient care to education, we bagged recognition for quality standardisation.
DR RUPALI BASU
CEO, Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, Kolkata & CEO-Eastern Region, Apollo Hospitals Group
Accreditation (JCIA). Our hospital is accredited by JCIA since the last five years. AGH, Kolkata is still the only hospital which is JCI accredited in the East. Apart from JCIA, our lab is accredited by NABL, the hospital food services is accredited
What are some of the key facilities available at the hospital? We are the multi-speciality, quaternary care hospital. We provide 360 degree clinical service, starting from high-end cardiac surgery, liver transplantation, bone marrow transplantation to cancer care. We perform almost every possible treatment and diagnostic modalities available under the sun. What are the steps taken to ensure sound health of corporate India? Apollo Health Check (AHC) is the key runner of the wellness drive of India. Continued on page 74
The Mission Hospital, Durgapur: Following Ethics Dr Satyajit Bose, Chairman,The Mission Hospital, Durgapur gives an overview about the hospital and how it stresses on quality, kindness and end-point based packages
DR SATYAJIT BOSE
Chairman, The Mission Hospital, Durgapur
JULY 2013
U
nlike in the rest of India, super specialty healthcare in this part of the country has developed only within the city limits of Kolkata. The demographic clinical flow of 'elective' healthcare would be a local consultation, followed by a referral to one of the tertiary centres in Kolkata. Most of these hospitals are unfortunately not manned by full time salaried doctors, do not stress on quality and treatment options are often guided by 'fiscal' end points, rather than clinical. Patients have been quick to realise this, and this has resulted in diversion of traffic more towards southern India. With so many hospitals coming up in Kolkata, with enhanced capex, they resort to a lot of strategies and promises to attract patients. More often, they are not able to adhere to the promises made. This creates an intense vicious cycle, wherein patients get diverted to distant destinations for healthcare, even for basic illnesses, and for more
money. This results in a considerable drain in state exchequer. Healthcare as an industry, alone, contributes maximally to the GDP of a state. Drainage of patients elsewhere, increases inconveniences and has resulted in significant negative fiscal implications. 'Emergency' patients in far flung areas, are in the mercy of their own pre-decided fate and God. Qualified doctors, with inadequate infrastructure, are left with no option but to refer them to Kolkata. This creates a serious gap in patient satisfaction, both in government sector as well the private. Moreover, many perish on the way. The Mission Hospital, was set up in Durgapur, in 2008 with certain aims of providing futuristic infrastructure, and brilliant minds behind them, with kindness,ensuring transparency of cost, and clinical protocols in line with the best practices of evidence based medicine. Our stress has been on quality, kindness and endwww.expresshealthcare.in
point based packages. We also encouraged a policy of cross subsidy, benefitting poorer people. We ensured, that a patient coming to the OPD was greeted with a smile, had minimal waiting times, was ushered to the right place by well mannered volunteers, their reports printed within two hours and sent home with a proper diagnosis and treatment options within three hours. 99 per cent of outpatients would fall within these benchmarks. Optimal patient information and communication has been our mainstay in our success story as well. Implementation of the pneumatic chute and PAX system has also shortened the journey from the imaging and lab department to the clinician resulting in faster diagnosis and cure. The overall patient satisfaction has been excellent and that has led to the development of departments of excellence in the areas of cardiac surgery, cardiology, orthopaedics and joint replace-
ment, neurosurgery, gastroenterology, nephrology, urology and kidney transplant, cosmetic and plastic surgery, critical care and pulmonology, emergency medicine etc. We, at The Mission Hospital (TMH), Durgapur, in our five years of existence have done 5000 heart surgeries, most of them being at high risk, of which about 2000 have been complex cyanotic congenital heart diseases. The results have been at par with international standards. Similarly, cardiologists have quietly performed close to 2500 angioplasties and pacemakers without any major fanfare and publicity. The patients are admitted under the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, wherein cardiac surgeons and cardiologists collectively take a decision regarding the mode of revascularisation chosen. Scores of patients have been adviced medical management who have been proposed Continued on page 56 EXPRESS HEALTHCARE
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