Continuous Improvement, Communication & Climate Change

The healthcare industry is expanding rapidly. The pandemic has brought attention to healthcare delivery and health like never before. The world is currently recovering from the effects of pandemic. Healthcare will also face new challenges in the coming year.

When there will be a lot of discussion about financial growth and marketing strategies, I would like to dedicate my thoughts towards three basic points to focus on – Continuous Improvement, Communication and Climate Change.

Continuous Improvement

Healthcare organizations have made quality a core value. The days when quality was limited to a handful of documents and a few departments have passed. Quality is now a tool for continuous improvement. Quality data collection is essential to ensure that you are moving in the right direction. It is crucial that all quality improvement strategies are based upon current and historical data. This can make or break any strategy. Data is the new oil. It is well-known that data is the new gold. Data is crucial for healthcare quality. It provides data to measure, improve, reflect, and motivate. Healthcare is different from other industries. It focuses on bringing errors and missteps to the forefront. This requires courage. It is more common to see errors with a negative intent than with the possibility of improvement.

The digitization of healthcare is improving at a rapid pace. This means that quality and improvement measurements are becoming digitalized. IT enablement in quality is essential to focus on the improvement and not data collection. Information technology must not be restricted to healthcare. It can also help in other areas. Healthcare IT is moving at a rapid pace to improve quality. Online dashboards, real-time data monitoring of key performance indicators, the ability to capture errors and conduct audits digitally are all possible. The challenge lies in how we manage and use this data for continuous improvement.

We are doing well on the public health front. Arogya SetuCowin is the most prominent example of IT-enabled healthcare by the government. It was able to cover the entire population and expanded the reach of information, education, and delivery of health care. The government is integrating digital health infrastructure under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. All citizens can easily create their Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts and access their digital health records. Through various initiatives, the government is leading healthcare digitization.

To continuously improve, one must look beyond the industry. Healthcare also involves learning concepts like Design Thinking, Lean, etc. From other industries. Healthcare delivery can improve if it is practical and implemented in a responsible manner. It has evolved from being a hospital or doctor-centric healthcare system to becoming patient-centric healthcare. Healthcare has started to place patients at the center of everything, just like other industries that keep customers at the heart of all their actions. Healthcare risk management, patient safety and pandemic preparedness are all encouraging efforts that contribute to overall improvement in healthcare delivery.

Continuous training and development are two of the pillars that support continuous improvement. The focus of the healthcare industry for the next year must be on continuous training and development. This is because it was lost during the Covid era due to exhausted healthcare professionals as well as geographical travel restrictions. However, training and learning continues digitally but hands-on, skill-based and performance-based trainings are what the industry needs.

Communication:

Communication in healthcare is the second area of focus for the coming year. It is one the most important but least discussed areas of healthcare. During the pandemic, everyone has experienced or witnessed the effects of isolation and increased communication. Communication in healthcare does not only refer to verbal and/or nonverbal communication, but also emotional and psychological. Because every person we meet has experienced a life-changing event in their personal or family life, empathy in communication is vital. It could be a loss of life, health deterioration or financial crisis. It is now facing greater mental stress and physical exhaustion. The mental health and well-being of colleagues in the profession has been affected in an unprecedented way by the pandemic. Professionals are often the saviours of humanity and cannot express their vulnerability or talk about their emotions. Industry has to focus on saving the saviour’s mental and physical health.

We need to be more aware of how we communicate in healthcare settings and train our staff for this. We are fortunate to have dedicated organizations such as the Indian Institute of Healthcare Communication that work towards this end. IIHC offers various training programs and sensitization in the fields of clinical communication and emotional intelligence, leadership, and teamwork in healthcare. There are plenty of books, literature, programs and dialogues that cover healthcare communication. All we need is to use them in our settings and also spread the word.A small effort in the right way of communication can bring a big change in the life of a person – be it a healthcare service provider or healthcare service seeker.

Climate Change

The impact of climate change on the health and well-being of the population are immense. The WHO estimates that climate change is responsible for more than 13,000,000 deaths each year around the globe. This includes the climate crisis, which is the greatest health threat facing humanity. The climate crisis is also an issue of health. To focus global attention on this crisis and to foster a movement to create societies focused on wellbeing of humans and the planet, WHO has the theme for World Health Day 2022 as – “Our Planet Our Health” – Clean our air, water & food for a healthier tomorrow.A report on Health care’s climate footprint by HCWH and Arup in 2019 says that if healthcare were a country it would be the fifth largest emitter on the planet. According to the Lancet article “The environmental footprint of health care: a global assessment” published in July 2020, health care causes global environmental impacts that range between 1% and 5% of total global impacts, and are more than 5% for some national impacts.

It is high time the healthcare industry focuses on this cause. Environment safety, better waste management, recycling, etc. are not enough. Healthcare organizations should not be limited to small initiatives. They must have a concrete plan in place to improve the environment, water, and food quality, and to combat climate change.

The best ways to reduce carbon footprint are to modify infrastructure, optimize the use of resources, make design changes, or take other similar actions. Focusing on sustainable procurement can make a bigger impact across the healthcare supply chain. Reduced waste and other wasteful activities can help to reduce financial leakages. It would be a good idea to make these changes more widely. Healthcare waste can also pose a problem for the environment and people if it is not properly disposed of. For the environment to be saved, it is important to make long-term plans.

For the upcoming financial year, and the years ahead, the healthcare industry that performed beyond expectations during the pandemic must be prepared. It must focus on continuous improvement, digitization and training, and improve healthcare communication at all levels. This will help reduce healthcare carbon footprint and mitigate the effects of climate change.