For the fifth time in a row, the Medical Center, obtained the “Safe Hospital National Award, ACHC 2018” and becomes the only institution in Colombia to receive the five awards granted, so far, by the Colombian Association of Hospitals and Clinics, ACHC. The award ceremony took place at the International Business and Exhibition Center, Corferias, in Bogotá, within the framework of the “International Meditech Health Fair.”
An audit visit and the qualification by the international jury ratified the maintenance of quality standards and our condition as a safe hospital, thus confirming the “Safe Hospital National Award 2018”. Next to Medical CenterThe Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, in Pasto, and the General Hospital, in Medellín, renewed the Award.
The Award recognizes and highlights, before the Colombian and Latin American Health sector, the set of strengths achieved by the winning institution, in the continuous improvement of safety for the benefit of its patients, collaborators and society in general. Of the 18 hospitals and clinics that applied in the 2018 version, three new institutions were awarded: the San Pedro Hospital, in Pasto, and the Rosario and Universitaria Bolivariana clinics, in Medellín.
“This new distinction is recognition of consistent work, an institutional policy and culture, and our commitment to quality and safety for the benefit of our patients,” said the General Manager, Rafael González Molina, upon receiving the Award.
Among the items taken into account for the selection of the winners are the structural foundations for safety; leadership, alignment and safety culture; patient safety management; and security management for the internal client. The Award promotes safety improvement processes in hospital institutions, encourages the search for levels of excellence and recognizes those who achieve the greatest achievements in improving patient safety, prevention, timely detection and correction of events or accidents.
“Our daily work consists of implementing policies and protocols aimed at reducing risks, to offer greater security to our patients. It is a daily effort of our medical groups and collaborators”, emphasized Dr. González. (See box: “Adverse events and patient safety”)
The Medical Center It is consolidated as one of the most important institutions in the country, due to its technological and scientific development and its medical group of 400 specialists. It has pioneering medical services and equipment in areas such as cardiology, orthopedics, radiosurgery, transplants, reproductive medicine, clinical laboratory, and diagnostic imaging.
It performs some 22,000 surgeries each year and receives some 80,000 emergency patients. It has the national accreditation in health, the Clinical and Pathology Laboratory the international accreditation by the American College of Pathology and the international accreditation by the European Federation of Immunogenetics. It is ranked 12th among the best health institutions in Latin America, in the 2017 ranking of América Economía Magazine.
“Our security indicators are similar to those rated as the best institutions in the world. Our Patient Safety Program has been going on for 18 years and is a pioneer in Colombia and a benchmark for the Ministry of Health and health institutions throughout the country,” says the doctor, director quality assurance and medical care.
Last year, the Medical Centerobtained the “Gold Seal”, the highest accreditation in the world granted by the Joint Commission International, JIC, and last month won the “Obras Cemex 2018 Award, for “innovation in construction”, for its modern headquarters.
Indeed, in 2016, the New Headquarters opened its doors, one of the most modern buildings in Latin America. In 82 thousand square meters, the medical complex was built with an earthquake-indifferent system, where modern medical technologies are available for the treatment of the most complex diseases.
“We welcome the new “Hospital Seguro Award” because it confirms that we are doing things right and that we work every day to improve all our processes aimed at our patients, to care for and preserve their lives,” said the doctor Raphael Gonzalez Molinageneral manager, of Medical Center.
ADVERSE EVENTS AND PATIENT SAFETY
“In an adverse event, the costs and losses are incalculable, the highest is the suffering: the patient suffers, the family suffers and the doctor suffers, because no doctor wants to do harm. Imagine if there is a death of the patient,” said Dr. José Joaquín Mira, a specialist in Patient Safety, who was part of the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO, and is now a professor at the University of Elche, in Spain.
For the expert and speaker at one of the versions of the “International Symposium on Patient Safety – clinical practices without errors” although progress has been made in safety programs, adverse events continue to cause astronomical costs for families, health entities and for patients. same states.
“Only in Spain, for example, we have estimated that with what these incidents cost each year, 6 hospitals with 300 beds can be built, operating 360 days a year,” says Dr. Mira.
In Colombia, a patient in intensive care, with an average stay of 3 days, costs for care can amount to 10 million pesos. Due to a nosocomial infection, the stay can be tripled and the costs multiplied by 10.
For the Symposium speaker, Dolors Monserrat, coordinator of PAHO’s patient safety programs, “there are a host of factors that conspire to make the risks very high: they are the medical groups, the tests or examinations, the diagnoses, health institutions, the same systems in each country and even patients, which are interrelated and must be taken into account in the normal development of a medical care process”, he says.
According to the specialist, according to a recent study on patient safety, carried out in the United States, between 44,000 and 100,000 patients die in that country every year due to adverse events. “In the United States and Europe, out of every 100 patients admitted, 10 suffer an adverse event, the majority due to medications,” says Dr. Monserrat.
“An error in a medication causes an organic reaction, the patient may be hospitalized for more days. It will require other procedures and other drugs that add up in cost. The cost of the bed, apart from the fact that there is another patient who needs that bed and this is one of the highest costs. Not counting the sequelae or disability that will affect the patient and his family, ”emphasizes the PAHO doctor.
The specialist said that in Latin America the figures are slightly higher and cited the IBEAS study (prevalence of adverse events in hospitals in Latin America), a project developed in 2007 by Colombia in conjunction with Mexico and Argentina, which found that out of every 100 patients who are admitted to a hospital, 12 suffer an adverse event and the majority due to nosocomial infections, that is, acquired in the institution.
Monserrat and Mira agree that between 60% and 70% of these events can be avoided and that health institutions and medical groups must join efforts to be much more meticulous to avoid them.
PREVENTION
According to the expert, an operating room is a very small space and a certain moment, but there are many people and many elements that intervene and forgetfulness can occur frequently, so it is necessary, if this happens, to put up a warning sign. alert or a running protocol, in order to prevent the repetition of errors.
In this sense, Dr. Mira pointed out that in surgical procedures, the ideal would be to rigorously implement what airlines do with their flight “Check Lists”. In this case it would be a surgical “Check List”, where everything is recorded and detailed before starting the surgery and after finishing,
“Minimum details that seem insignificant, but are not, from the name of the patient and even the part of the body affected, for example which leg is to be operated on, because any of the two details can mean a monumental error,” said the Spanish specialist.
“There have been cases and they occur all over the world, such as forgetting a gauze, a clamp or a needle inside the patient’s body. Or in the most critical case mistake of the part to operate. In these cases, indeed, there was no rigor in the description of the details of both the intervention and the elements required for it”, says Dr. Mira.
According to the specialist, these are protocols that are not complicated and that must be made official and within these, there are habits as simple and as important as, for example, washing hands before and after making contact with the patient.
“The report of incidents or specific risk situations (as occurs in airlines) first so that they do not happen again and, second, in the event of a similar situation, knowing what must be done”, emphasizes Dr. Mira .