Gujarat is the first state in India to initiate active perusal of quality improvements in the public healthcare facilities including Primary Health Centers (PHCs), Community Health Centers (CHCs), District Hospitals & Medical Colleges. To attain the vision of creating the network of finest public health care institutions providing preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative health care services  with the state of art technology, easy accessibility, affordability and quality throughout the state & beyond. Gujarat is also the only state to set up the District & State Quality Assurance cell to bring productivity and effectiveness in health care delivery system. State Quality Improvement Programme of Department of Health and Family welfare of Government of Gujarat proposes to develop and institutionalize the use of the field based, practical and feasible indicators in quality assessment transforming the existing supervision practices into a more standardized and structured process. A pool of health care professionals in the public health sector trained in the implementation of health care quality standards has been developed for the same. The basic principal is that any sustainable change in terms of institutionalization of Quality Assurance (QA) will come from within the system and not from outside. It is hoped that interventions from demand side (for example, community and individuals demanding better services) will also put pressure on the system to deliver quality services which will in turn give impetus for investing in QA. 

The core objective of the Quality Assurance Cell (QAC) is to facilitate the improvement of systems and processes of service delivery in the healthcare facilities as per the standard technical protocol to meet the laid down standards (e.g. Swachhata Mission / Kayakalp / NABH / NQAS / NABL / IPHS/ MCI / GOI guidelines) as appropriate; to establish & develop quality management systems at the hospital level, leading to enhancement in service quality and leading to Quality certifications by the Quality assurance cell; to implement & monitor quality of MCH services at health; and to undertake such other GOI / State initiatives entrusted with the QAC from time to time (e.g. MDR, MCTS etc.).

 

Keywords:-

 

Quality, healthcare, standards, safety, training, MDR, MCTS