Patients at Ram Mohan Lohla Hospital, AIIMS, PGI Chandigarh and NIMHAMS will exercise from next month what could become a permanent fixture in the Indian medial landscape-they will provide feedback regarding the quality of services which will help determine the rating for the hospital.

As a way to provide star ratings to government health facilities, the health ministry is going to launch a patient feedback mechanism backed with information technology towards the end of this month. In the pilot phase, the system(called the Patient Satisfaction System or PSS) will be made available in 54 central and state-run hospitals. The hospitals include about 30 in Rajastan, one in Northeast India and multiple district hospitals in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu that have a centralized management system already in place.

A multi-pronged approach is to be adopted so that patient feedback could be recorded using a web portal as well as incorporating an interactive voice response system(IVRS) and SMS service. The implementation is to happen both in public hospitals and empaneled hospitals in the private sector.

Health Minister J P Nadda will launch the PSS application on August 29, on the occasion of the ministry’s Best Practices Seminar which will be held in Tirupati.

PSS application-automated to a very good extent

The PSS application is automated to a good extent. It can do such intelligent things as contacting the a patient after his/her engagement with the hospital is over. Those who visit the outpatient department will be departed once their file is closed by the department. And the in-patients, when they are being discharged. As per the current plan, feedback from over a lakh patients will be collected every single day.

Senior officials in the Ministry of Health has said that the feedback will be factored in while determining the star ratings to be given to government health facilities. At present, a star ratings system based on service quality, infrastructure, drug availability and similar factors is being finalized. Once this is locked, it will be linked with an incentive amount to states under the National Health Mission. Incorporating patient feedback in the scheme is expected to ensure that doctors and other staff members remain accountable.

The patient’s feedback will be dispersed to facilities, both at the state and district levels. The feedback will also be displayed on the portal-thus, it becomes part of information in the public domain, allowing people to see how others are rating the hospitals hospitals in a particular location. As per a health ministry functionary, such an approach would help add weight to the quality assessment.

However, whether or not the feedback is to be used for gauging the performance of medical superintendents is entirely at the state’s discretion, according to the same functionary. States are advised that the feedback should form the reference point for the ACR of civil surgeons and superintendents. This is to be a significant element in the National Quality Assurance Plan for health facilities, as per the official.

The feedback mechanism will also become part of the ranking system for district hospitals which the NITI Ayog is preparing.
The feedback system is a part of a bigger initiative by the government to improve the service quality in government health facilities. The ministry bets on the idea that since the feedback is somewhat linked to the coffers of the NHM, states will be driven to act on the inputs.

Analysis of data will happen with the PSS system on an almost real time basis. The performance will be assessed at the facility, district and national levels. This feedback will form the basis for improving facilities/processes so that the patient will get a better experience.

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