Cell for Health Services Management

Mission

To assess and fulfill the research and training needs of health sector with a view to improve the delivery mechanism for health services, particularly in the government hospitals and dispensaries.

Objectives

1. To assess the training needs of professionals working in health sector.
2. To organize training programmes for various categories of personnel in government hospitals and dispensaries .
3. To build the capacity of the medical and para-medical staff of the health
department for providing better services to the patients.
4. To take up any research projects related to delivery of health services under the health department of the State.

Spectrum of Activities

1. Providing training to the medical and para-medical staff of the department of health and family welfare, Ayush department and Medical colleges in Punjab, in the relevant administrative matters, soft skills, computer related skills and other areas of their interest.
2. Undertake research in any area leading to the development and reforms in the working of the health department.

Activities carried out so far

1. Organised workshops for capacity building of the medical and para medical staff of the health department, particularly the Medical College at Patiala and Amritsar for providing better services to the patients.
2. Talks on "Ayurveda for Healthy Living" for the judicial officers, Institute staff and senior officers of the state government.

Recent Activities

Hospital Management – Role of Healthcare Provider (January-February 2012)

During the month of February 2011 it was decided in consultation with the Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, that a team from the institute would visit four district level hospitals, four CHCs and four PHCs in the state for capacity building of medical and paramedical staff in these health institutions. Accordingly, the district level hospital of Hoshiarpur District was visited in the month of April 2011. The district level hospitals at Ludhiana and Jalandhar and Sub-Divisional Civil Hospital at Anandpur Sahib were visited in the month of October 2011.

The team that visited the health institutions comprised of:-

1. Dr. T C Goyal, Senior Consultant at the Institute

2. Dr. Sonu Goel, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, PGIMER

3. Dr. Manjushri Sharma, Assistant Professor, University Institute of Applied Management Sciences, Panjab University

Dr. T C Goyal motivated the medical and paramedical staff to provide better health services to the patients. He emphasised that the quality of care can be maximized only by a few measures like speaking softly to the patients and their attendants, giving correct and timely information about illness and medications, providing basic amenities like safe drinking water, clean toilet facilities, etc. which do not cost anything but earn admiration from patients and their attendants.

The poor suffer the most and die younger. They have higher than average child and maternal mortality rate and limited access to health care. For poor people good medical health is a crucially important asset as their livelihood largely depends upon it. Keeping this in view the medical and paramedical personnel were advised to pay special attention to the poor patients and treat them on priority.

Dr. Sonu Goel gave a detailed description of various patient and management centric activities. He demonstrated hand hygiene practices for hospital infection control and discussed in detail the procedure for biomedical waste managements. The procedures currently being followed by the hospital were studied and necessary improvements suggested to the hospital staff for the ones found to be inadequate.

Dr. Manjushri Sharma talked about total quality management in the hospital and discussed the role of various employees of the hospital in management of quality services and cleanliness.

The civil surgeon and other doctors were advised to identify the additional facilities or services which could be provided to the patients without incurring much expenditure in OPD, IPD, OT, Emergency and laboratories. They were requested to take steps in providing these services to the patients at the earliest possible.

The medical officers, SMOs and CMOs promised to provide such services to the patient without much delay. The Institute team would again visit these hospitals to monitor the reforms implemented by them.