Health ministry drafts framework for ensuring patient safety

New Delhi: The Union health ministry has come up with a draft framework aimed at ensuring patient safety while undergoing any medical intervention and it proposes measures such as setting up of an online grievance system.

The draft National Patient Safety Implementation Framework (NPSIF) states that patient safety is a fundamental element of healthcare and is defined as freedom for a patient from unnecessary harm or potential harm associated with the provision of healthcare.

It is about safe drugs dispensing, surgical care, safe childbirth, injection safety, blood safety, medication safety, medical device safety, safe organ, tissue and cell transportation and donation, said a senior health ministry official.

It is also about bio-medical waste management, prevention of healthcare associated infections and much more, the official said.

Failure to deliver safe care is attributed to unsafe clinical practices, unsafe processes and poor systems and processes.

According to the senior health ministry official, the framework is based on six main pillars--health system strengthening, improvement in adverse events reporting, training of healthcare personnel, research, vertical campaigns which includes injection safety, blood safety, surgical saftey, maternal and child healthcare and quality of healthcare services through accreditation.

"The provisions of healthcare services have significantly grown in the public sector over the past few years and there is a large unregulated private sector. Therefore, the quality of services and its legal aspects need to be taken up at this point," the official said.

Challenges in patient safety in India are numerous, ranging from unsafe injections and biological waste management to medication and medical device safety, high rates of healthcare associated infections, anti-microbial resistance etc, the draft states. There are a wide range of initiatives in patient safety being implemented in India at different levels of care in both public and private sectors, and there is a multiplicity of national and international stakeholders working in this area.