SVIMS director gets pat for patient safety initiative

Tirupati: SVIMS Director Dr T S Ravikumar gave a call to the hospitals to evolve patient safety models as part of improving health care facility. Ravikumar, who participated in the Expert Group Meeting (EGM) held in New Delhi on April 23 and 24, spoke on various models he had developed while he was working in the USA for enhancing patient safety in the hospitals. He wanted the hospitals to give due importance to patient safety in their health care system.

The EGM meet jointly organised by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MH&FW) and World Health Organisation (WHO) with the task of developing national guidelines on patient safety for the National Patient Safety Implementation Framework of India.

Ravikumar, who is pioneer in developing patient safety in SVIMS Hospital, was invited to EGM keeping in view of his rich experience working in the USA and India. Speaking on the topic of 'Improving Hospital Patient Safety,' he explained on the models introduced by him in SVIMS to improve health care quality along with patient safety which drew the attention MH&FW and WHO. They invited him to attend the high-level meeting on patient safety.

He touched on many patient safety models for adoption in India and discussed about the patient safety models that he developed in USA (New York, Pennsylvania), JIPMER (Pondicherry) and SVIMS and basing on these, he proposed a model for National Patient Safety Cell.

EGM Chairman Dr N S Dharmshaktu, Principal Advisor (Public Health) and Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr S Venkatesh appreciated the progress made under the leadership of Ravikumar in several medical institutions in India and abroad.

Ravikumar also co-chaired one of the working groups for implementation of framework, including training of professionals in patient safety. He expressed his profound thanks to the MH&FW and WHO for their efforts to improve patient safety in hospitals across India.