D-G: Private hospitals must report all irregularities

Star: PETALING JAYA: All private healthcare facilities are required, beginning Jan 1, to report incidents that jeopardised patients’ safety to the Health director-general.
These could be cases such as unexplained deaths, brain injuries during a hospital stay, fire causing deaths, assault or battery of patients and haemodialysis patients detected with Hepatitis B or C, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said.
“These incidents and deaths will be evaluated by special committees to ensure that lessons are learnt and disseminated in order to prevent a recurrence,” said Dr Ismail, who is also the Patient Safety Council of Malaysia chairman.
Under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act, individual offenders can be fined up to RM10,000 or RM30,000 for a corporation and/or jail for not more than three months, he said yesterday.
He added that he had issued a directive to all private healthcare facilities and services following a national briefing conducted by the Medical Practices Division and Medical Care Quality Section on Dec 17. A document that outlines the processes necessary for patients’ safety titled “Achieving Excellence in Clinical Governance” was launched at the council’s meeting on Tuesday.
It would be distributed to healthcare facilities for implementation.
“The council would monitor the implementation progress on a regular basis,” he said, adding that senior management in hospitals should continue talking to front-line staff on patient safety while he and his team would conduct surprise visits to inculcate a safety culture.
The Patient Safety Council will announce the Patient Safety Goals and Targets that need to be achieved by all healthcare facilities in Malaysia in the near future, he said.
“These goals will cover key safety issues such as medication safety, safe surgery, clinical governance, infection control, prevention of falls, blood transfusion safety, clinical incident reporting, clinical care bundles, patient safety research, patient safety projects; all of which are expected to make the patient care experience a safer one,” he said.
Dr Ismail also said that initiatives to ensure medication safety must be targeted at all levels of the healthcare system since drug therapy or pharmacotherapy was the main form of treatment.