WHAT IS A GOOD HOSPITAL?

1. WHAT IS A GOOD HOSPITAL?
Dr.T.V.Rao MD
I wonder we are lucky that we are living in a world of choice, in every aspect of life, our growing
Number of Doctors and Hospitals are only little aspect of life, when it comes to choices, While I was
working in a British established Hospital in Central Africa I learnt three great words from a English
surgeon with FRCS the Medical profession is based on three great words, Tender, Loving Care and
Compassion the rest are the experiments we do with many of our patients, he further said, we are
working in Africa people come too late for treatment and we have few medicines to save many lives,
Above they have no choices, no money we have to do something for the poor people, say some
things good to give a Hope to life. Today my life is guided by the philosophy, ri sing out of Human
suffering, India in spite of so many advancements, many doctors lacks knowledge in aspects of
academic medicine, poor in approach to the patient’s problems, tomorrow we are going to have
many aged population who just dependent on little savings of the life and pensions, what care the
system provides a great question awaits many policy makers. Life is complex and I never realized the
truth of vagaries of medical profession until my father had Cancer of the urinary Bladder, totally
mismanaged by many Super specialists and specialists and then we reached Bombay with savings of
my father, to get treated at India’s prime Institute on cancer management, whatever we are when
get into complex health problem we are like any one, the conditions are disappointing few people
have human face, the poor humans are dealt as in Veterinary hospitals. Some the so called
specialists in India’s prime institutes are worse and rude than our own government hospitals, just to
know the results of little about X ray it takes more than 24 hours , people are rude as our society
behaves and also as we see in many places. My father said Iam not interested in living longer and
wish to walk out of this Hospital so I can die peacefully, I do not know they can treat me or not I
need compassion and not long life to live, so in Midnight we moved from Bombay to Madras and
later treated at Adayar Cancer hospital, Chennai I owe many gratitude to Dr. Santhakumari Madam
Director of the Institute developed a culture in the Cancer Institute that the people come here with
hope and advises the Doctors how we can sustain their hope is the great success of this Institution,
as few live longer, today we have many hospitals never mind everybody makes money some
hospitals are Humanistic, A kind word is more than the Oxygen to a dyspnoeic patient , Never forget
no one has choice to life one day we have to meet our fate both in good or otherwise circumstances.
I have realized my qualification with MD or Professorship will not make any difference to this world
unless I search my consciousness and practice a little humanity to the people we deal. God made me
a professor to teach many students who will be useful citizens and humanistic doctors, today I work
with the society and understand many matters from many around who have no choices except to
face the system majority of the times at the receiving end, I have more choices to serve with
Infectious problems, and Hospital acquired infections. About 650,000 patients each year develop a
hospital acquired infection. So, on any given day, about one of every 25 hospitalized patients are
infected while in the hospital. The most common types of infections that patients get in the hospital
are pneumonia and surgical site infections. (Quoted information of documents) About 12 percent of
patients die in the hospital from the infections that they get while hospitalized. It is modern trend to
rate the hospitals as, Ratings tell you whether patients would recommend the hospital, their overall
assessment of it, and their experience with topics such as communication with doctors and nurses,
pain control, how fast you attended their grievance and whether their rooms were kept clean and
quiet. A good Hospital do not need marketing, the patient’s treated at Hospitals are great
Ambassadors to success of the Hospitals, a well -treated patients will recommend us many in his own

2. world They can help you compare hospitals in your area so you can choose the one that's best for
you. Even if you don't have a choice of hospitals, the Ratings can alert you to particular concerns so
you can take steps to prevent problems no matter which hospital you go to. For example, if a
hospital scores low in communicating with patients about what to do when they're discharged, you
should ask about discharge planning at the hospital you chose and make sure you know what to do
when you leave. The real truth about reputation of Hospital depended on simple parameters one
among them is Safety score: This is a summary of several key categories related to hospital safety:
avoiding infections, avoiding readmission's, communicating about new medications and discharge,
appropriate use of chest and abdominal CT scanning, avoiding serious complications, and avoiding
mortality. Surgery remains the back bone of many Hospitals for success and failures and many
Hospitals get bad reputation if the matters go wrong with the surgery Studies suggest that for some
types of operations, experience leads to higher success and lower complication rates. You should
also ask whether the doctor has any financial interests in the procedures or devices that are going to
be used. This can help you understand if there's a potential conflict of interest. Also ask if the
surgeon can provide references from patients willing to speak with you. Never forget creating the
good Hospital records is the primary concern of the treating physicians and surgeons finally, make
sure you or your friend or family member comes home with copies of all your treatment records and
test results so you can make sure your local doctors have them for follow-up care. Too often, even if
you request the hospital to forward your records to your local doctors, Death is an unavoidable part
of life, as Mortality. Many hospital patients in a year die at least in part because of preventable
medical errors. Many Hospitals consider Safety Score contains two measures of mortality: –mortality
in patients with heart failure, heart attack, or pneumonia; death due to multidrug resistant
infections and surgery patients.
Never forget we are living in changing world everything has conflict of Interest however the
Institutes to thrive and fail should concentrate on the following factors In addition, we rate specific
measures of patient experience based on answers to questions about:
Communication about discharge and medications
Doctor-patient and nurse-patient communication
Pain control, the effective pain management brings in greater acceptance of treatments in spite of
many short comings
Receiving help when needed
Keeping hospital rooms quiet at night and keeping rooms and bathroom clean.
The hospital managements should not think that we establish the hospitals to people around the
location never forget it will not work as people are more mobile and well informed. When people
learn they have a serious disease, their first reaction is often, "Where's the best place in the world or
in the state live to go for this?" They're often willing to travel anywhere, and they assume that's
what they'll have to do. Finding a good doctor and, if necessary, a good hospital are indeed essential
when you're seriously ill. But for the vast majority of illnesses, even serious ones, you can usually
find excellent care fairly close to home, especially if you live in or near a big city. Traveling for health
care, however, may offer advantages in certain cases. For example, you might have a rare condition
that's adequately treated in only a few institutions worldwide. Maybe you need an unusual or
difficult procedure or operation that your local doctors don't perform often enough to keep up their
technical skills. Or perhaps you want to enrol in a clinical trial that's taking place far from your home.

3. Today everything is a package deal every day of additional stay in Hospital with complications arising
out of inadequate medical care and Infections will reduce the reputation of the Hospitals.
Never forget we are living in changing world the Hospitals must be made Safe whom they treat with
better safety scores, it must have valid data for all measures that we include in calculating the score:
patient experience, readmission's, scanning, infections, and mortality..
It is unfortunate many Hospitals in India are managed with business interests which can make or
break the system, without fundamentals on safety and ethics few Institutes can deal with emerging
challenges? Darwin’s theory still working in spite of many hospitals Doctors and great ideas we
have?
Ref How to choose a hospital – Consumer Reports org
Dr.T.V.Rao MD Professor of Microbiology Freelance writ