Hyderabad: New protocols come up at private hospitals

Hyderabad: Learning lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, leading private healthcare providers have started introducing changes in their treatment protocols.

Drawing on the experience of tackling the pandemic during last one year, the hospitals are pre-screening patients not just for Covid-19 but also other potential infectious diseases. For this, some of the hospitals have allocated separate infrastructure and manpower within the premises.

"All hospitals are now geared up to admitting patients with other infectious diseases. The experience gained while tackling Covid-19 menace, the staff has had immense learning through various in-house trainings in infection prevention and control practices," Dr Riyaz Khan, CEO, Continental Hospitals, said.

He said that all hospitals in future would be required to have pre-triaging area to be able to identify any potential infectious patients. He pointed out that Continental Hospitals, with its JCI accreditation, follows the best practice to universally screen all patients for any suspected infectious diseases.

Dr Mervin Leo, Cluster COO, Gleneagle Global Hospitals, said: "Hospitals will have to create dedicated and differentiated pathways for normal patients and those with infectious diseases. Adequate isolation rooms with negative pressure areas will become a norm in most of the modern hospitals. "Adaptation of all patient care areas like operating rooms, diagnostic and radiology services to effectively segregate infectious patients while providing seamless services to other patients will have to be ensured."

He is of the view that going ahead, the role of infectious disease experts will become pivotal in steering the entire emergency response mechanism, developing treatment protocols and training of nurses and support staff to handle emerging situations. "Video consultations and Out of the Hospital (OOH) care has seen wider acceptability during the Covid-19 lockdown and in the subsequent times; and this shall continue to have even more patients' subscriptions in the times ahead," he said.

Dr Pradeep Panigrahi, Medical Director, SLG Hospitals, said they learnt how to handle a pandemic, and develop protocols to prevent its spread into the community. He said although the numbers of testing in India might not be high, the Indian healthcare machinery optimised resources by being able to undertake a targeted testing approach that helped to effectively isolate the hotspots in a scientific manner.