Continuous training and awareness

Online incident reporting easier and faster incident reporting

Rewards & Recognition for employees reporting incidents instead of any kind of punitive action

Periodic Safety Culture Surveys

 

Our Patient, Our Responsibility Initiative

Induction & Handholding of every employee

Employee is part of the initiative as soon as they join to imbibe the culture as a habit

Inclusion of Patient & their family in the process through regular education

Technology for Patient Identification
Bar Coding
Bar codes on patient wrist bands and on every page of patient medical records & reports. Right identification just scan away

Surgical Safety Checklist with Voice Over
Pre-recorded Voiceover to conduct ‘Time-Out’
Better compliance to the process

One Apollo
Largest Healthcare Provider with footprints on more than 1,000 locations
Easier patient identification across the care continuum and formats with a single registration and code

Primarily incident reporting improved remarkably with the implementation of above interventions. Number of incidents reported peaked in between with gradual decline subsequently as the preventive actions for the root causes were implemented.

With the growth of a culture of safety and the eventual improvement of incident reporting, the patient identification errors were being identified with 0.5% in 2008 (because of gross under reporting) to 8.3% in 2012 and then a gradual improvement from thereon year on year with the implementation of above interventions.

Surgical Safety Checklist with Voiceover also showed a great impact with respect to the compliance for surgical safety. Improvements were seen in compliance, doctor participation & completion of medical records.

The universal unique hospital number had a positive impact on the patient satisfaction levels too, due to the hassle free registrations with drastically reduced waiting time

A right mix of culture change and technology implementation is required to bring about a positive impact in improving the patient identification process. “Our Patient Our Responsibility” initiative at Apollo had that right mix which was evident from the improved metrics in the results. These have brought down the patient identification errors in a sustainable manner. Hence, this step towards Right Patient Identification is truly a giant leap towards Patient Safety.