NMC to Celebrate its Foundation Day on September 25, Medical Colleges asked to Participate

New Delhi: With the National Medical Commission (NMC) completing three years as the apex medical regulator in India, the Commission has decided to celebrate its foundation day on September 25, 2023. 

For this, the NMC has written to the medical colleges to participate in the celebrations which will be held from 17th September to 25th September, 2023 "with the cooperation and help of all the stake holders of the medical fraternity."

Further, participation has also been sought for "Patient Safety Programme" which will be conducted the whole week.

The Commission mentioned, "The participation from medical colleges will be appreciated on 25th September 2023 to applaud, motivate, and appreciate the efforts and enthusiasm of the participants on virtual platform in presence of all the healthcare professionals and students."

"Esteemed speakers will be invited for key notes to address the importance of patient safety in current healthcare scenario. The medical colleges will be encouraged to inculcate the culture of patient safety in their surroundings and premises serving the goal of doing sick no harm," it further added.

Issuing a circular to all the medical colleges across the country, the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of NMC requested the colleges to participate in the celebrations. "A line in confirmation of your participation in the programme will be highly appreciated," NMC mentioned in the circular.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that after the passing of the National Medical Commission Bill in the year 2019, NMC consequently replaced the erstwhile apex medical regulator the Medical Council of India (MCI) on September 25, 2020.

Addressing the establishment of the NMC, the recent MARB circular stated, "As you may be aware that the main aim of establishment of National Medical Commission is to achieve the high standards of medical education in the country and also to ensure availability of excellent quality of infrastructure in respect of the medical education. NMC ensures transparency, accountability, and quality in the governance of medical education in the country with the purpose to lessen the burden on students while increasing the number of medical seats."

The Commission also referred to the issue of patient care and mentioned, "It hardly needs emphasis that ethically well being of the patients undergoing medical treatment is primary duty of the whole of medical fraternity and also to treat the patients without any discrimination on the basis of their religion, cast, colour and gender."

"In the backdrop of the above, National Medical Commission has decided to celebrate "Patient Safety Programme Celebrations' from 17th September to 25th September, 2023 with the cooperation and help of all the stake holders of the medical fraternity. Further, NMC will also be celebrating its foundation day on 25th September, 2023," it further mentioned.

Detailed Agenda:

Orientation sessions:

Healthcare professionals of medical colleges on following topics for awareness and knowledge enhancement shall be trained at your end prior to the beginning of programme.

• International patient safety goals

• Training on Engaging Patients for Patient Safety

• Emergency codes

• Medication Safety

• Infection control

• Department Checklist-Parameters/Indicators

17th to 25th September 2023

Patient Safety programme

Day one (17th September 2023)

Engaging Patients for Patient Safety (Patient rights and responsibilities/ Grievance redressal/Citizens charter)

Patients play a crucial role in ensuring their safety in hospitals. Patient education is one of the means to involve and engage patients in this process. Medical colleges are suggested to do the following activities on this day:

• Display of Patient rights and responsibilities at prominent patient areas such as Reception area/OPD/IPD/Diagnostics etc. for patient education. The display should be bilingual, clearly visible at eye level and as per standard regulations.

• Establishing and strengthening the patient grievance mechanism (if already existing) through ensuring availability of suggestion box (at safe and accessible height level at OPD, Reception etc.), feedback register, display of contact numbers of responsible person for grievance redressal.

• Display of Citizen Charter at prominent place such as Reception area/OPD/IPD etc.

Day two (18th September 2023)

Mock drills

Medical colleges should perform CODE RED*, CODE BLUE and CODE PINK mock drills in their premises based on their learning from the orientation sessions. Colleges can voluntarily choose to perform CODE BLACK/CODE YELLOW mock drills. They are advised to record the mock drills in video and pictures.

*Advisable to involve Local Fire safety department also for Code Red training and Mock drill.

Day three (19th September)

Medication Safety

Medical colleges are suggested to conduct training on Medication safety for their staff. The training should include adverse drug events (medication errors and adverse drug reactions), 7Rs (Right patient, right drug, right dose, right time, right route, right reason, and right documentation) of medication, near expiry audit, prescription writing and audit, storage of LASA (Look alike & sound alike) and high-risk medications, cut strip policy and antibiotic policy.

Day four (20th September 2023)

Hand hygiene

The medical colleges are suggested to train the staff on WHO hand hygiene technique (Hand rub and Hand wash) to ensure infection prevention and control. (Availability of hand hygiene material, display of hand hygiene signage, training, audit)

Day five (21st September 2023)

Poster / Slogan competition among students on international patient safety goals

Poster/slogan making competition to be conducted amongst students and staff to inculcate the best patient safety practices in nascent stage of medical education and ensure patient safety becomes culture of every medical college. Students and staff are suggested to explore their creativity to initiate an efficacious effort of spreading the word of patient safety and its relevance.

The themes of poster/slogan making competition should be based on best practices implemented at your college/ hospital in following goals enlisted below:

• Goal One: Identify patients correctly.

• Goal Two: Improve staff communication.

• Goal Three: Use medicines safely.

• Goal Four: Use alarms safely.

• Goal Five: Prevent infection.

• Goal Six: Identify patient safety risks.

• Goal Seven: Prevent mistakes in surgery.

Day six (22nd September 2023)

Best department competition

The medical colleges will assess their departments on certain parameters and score the departments. The top scoring department to be recognized as best department by the college. The checklist will be provided to the colleges during the time of training period.

Parameters of assessment will include:

• Infection control-Hand hygiene, biomedical waste management etc.

• Record keeping-Registers, files and other relevant documents etc.

• Facility check-Electrical safety, signages, labelling, any other safety hazard etc.

• Patient safety goals

Medical colleges are requested to recognize and reward the best departments in form of distribution of certificate, memento, souvenir etc.

NMC Foundation Day (25th September 2023)

The participation from medical colleges will be appreciated on 25th September 2023 to applaud, motivate, and appreciate the efforts and enthusiasm of the participants on virtual platform in presence of all the healthcare professionals and students.

Esteemed speakers will be invited for key notes to address the importance of patient safety in current healthcare scenario. The medical colleges will be encouraged to inculcate the culture of patient safety in their surroundings and premises serving the goal of doing sick no harm.

To view the NMC circular, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/nmc-patient-safety-programme-and-foundation-day-215972.pdf

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