Promoting Safety Culture through medical audit

Apollo Hospitals in association with the Health Information Management Association (HIMA) hosted a one-day workshop on 'Medical Audit' at Apollo Health City in Jubilee Hills on Thursday.

The workshop was inaugurated by Profesoor Dr GD Mogli, President HIMA-India in the presence of Y Subramanyam, CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad; Dr Raju N Mantena, Secretary NRI Academy; Dr A Ravindra Babu, Medical Superintendent, Apollo Health City; Prof P Satyanarayana and Lt Col Dr K Kamalakar.

“Medical audit is a quality improvement exercise that seeks to enhance patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care provided against the set criteria.

It enables to measure current practices against defined standards, identify discrepancies in the quality of care and work towards a mechanism for improving that quality. It forms part of clinical governance, which aims to safeguard the high quality of clinical care for patients,” informed Dr Raju.

In his key address, Dr Mogli emphasised on the need for audit in the field of medicine on par with financial audit, which is accountability of the treatment rendered and documented. “The Medical Audit in the organisation brings about safety of culture among the healthcare professionals,” he said.

Subramanyam, laid stress on maintaining medical record upto date. “A good medical record provides information of the care rendered by the hospital,” he advised.

Dr Babu urged the paramedical, nursing and medical professionals to maintain proper and accurate medical records. “A proper documentation always protects the doctor, patient and the hospital,” he said.