INFECTION PREVENTION IN HOSPITALS

INFECTION PREVENTION IN HOSPITALS

 

The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) under the Quality Council of India (QCI), in association with Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), has launched a national infection control certification programme — SAFE-I — aimed at supporting hospitals in attaining quality-of-care standards and reducing the rates of hospital-associated infections in patients, during a function on Tuesday(27^th March,2012).Kozhikode is the second city after Thiruvananthapuram in the State where the programme is being launched. The hospitals joining the programme will be helped by a consultant to obtain a SAFE-I certification offered by the NABH through a five-month upgradation process. “An independent assessment will be made by NABH at the end of the course,” Gayatri Mahindroo, director of the NABH, said at the function.

She said as many as 22 hospitals in the State had already secured an accreditation similar to SAFE-I from the NABH through an initiative as part of National Rural Health Mission. “Out of this, eight of them are government hospitals,” she said. Dr. Mahindroo maintained that there were more than 30 applications pending from the State. She said there were hardly any regulations in most of the hospitals in the country to strictly ensure an infection-free environment to the patients. “SAFE-I is only one of the several initiatives of the board towards this end,” she said.Bhaskar Sonowal, technical advisor, infection control, BD, who was present on the occasion, said SAFE-I was a holistic and comprehensive infection control programme. It would equip the hospitals to ensure standards in injection safety, infusion safety, healthcare worker safety, biomedical waste management, and effective sterilisation process.

                                                  Prof. John Kurakar