Improving quality of care for mother, newborn: Chandigarh bags two awards

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 17

The UT has bagged two awards for LaQshya implementation in Labour Room and Maternity OT for 2020-21 under the small states category.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has launched programme ‘LaQshya’ — quality improvement initiative in labour room and maternity OT, aimed at improving the quality of care for mothers and newborn babies during intrapartum and immediate post-partum period.

On culmination of Patient Safety Week, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), in coordination with National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC), Government of India, organised a virtual function today wherein best performing states/UTs were awarded for National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS) and LaQshya certification. The chief guest was Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya.

The LaQshya scores for National certification were as mentioned below:

According to information, the assessment was carried out by the external assessors selected by the NHSRC from various states across the country and the assessment continued for two consecutive days for each facility. The scoring was done on various parameters such as service provision (In respect to curative services, diagnostic services), patient rights (In respect to the information available, sensitivity in respect to gender, religion, social status, maintenance of privacy and dignity of patient and facilitating informed decision making etc), inputs (regarding the infrastructure, manpower, equipment and logistics etc), support services (for maintenance of equipment, provision of safe environment etc), clinical services (in terms of proper assessment of patient, continuity of care, referral and identification of high risk and vulnerable patients etc), infection control (assessment of various of procedures and protocol followed to prevent infection) and quality management (by assessing the organisational framework, regular internal and external assessments and documentation of SOP and carrying out various audits to maintain quality).

The assessment was done of all efficiency and productivity indicators and clinical care and safety indicators.

LaQshya certification is a continuous process to ensure that quality is maintained and further upgraded by state assessment on a yearly basis. State assessment for all four facilities in the UT for the 2021-22 has been conducted and all of them have qualified for state certification. The National Certification will be repeated at a three yearly interval.