RESUMEN
Hospitals are by nature complex organisations and the complexity is compounded in service hospitals with perceived notion of service deficiencies. Quality has emerged as a major issue in health care sector and TQM has been accepted as a major long-term strategic initiative towards continuously improving quality of health care. Key concepts of TQM start with top management leadership with emphasis on process and customer focus. Implementation of TQM in service hospitals will require Quality Management awareness, training and framework development as well as development of customer awareness. TQM has been widely applied in clinical field with successful outcome. TQM is not a short-term solution, it has to be understood and practised as a long-term strategic commitment.
RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: The Ministry of Environment & Forests notified the Biomedical Waste (management & handling) Rules, 1998" (BMW Mgt) in July 1998. In accordance with the rules, every hospital generating BMW needs to set up requisite BMW treatment facilities on site or ensure requisite treatment of waste at common treatment facility. No untreated BMW shall be kept stored beyond a period of 48 hours. The cost of construction, operation and maintenance of system for managing BMW represents a significant part of overall budget of a hospital if the BMW rules have to be implemented in their true spirit. Two types of costs are required to be incurred by hospitals for BMW Mgt, internal and external. Internal cost is the cost for segregation, mutilation, disinfection, internal storage and transportation including hidden cost of protective equipment. External costs are off site transportation, treatment and final disposal. METHODS: A study of hospitals was carried out from various sectors like Govt, Private, Charitable institutions etc. to assess the infrastructural requirement for BMW Mgt. Cost was worked out for a hospital where all the infrastructure as per each and every requirement of BMW rules had been implemented and then it was compared with other hospitals where hospitals have made compromises on each stage of BMW Mgt. RESULTS: Capital cost incurred by benchmarked hospital of 1047 beds was Rs.3 lakh 59 thousand excluding cost of incinerator and hospital is incurring Rs. 656/- per day as recurring expenditure. Pune city has common regional facility for BMW final disposal. Facility is charging Rs.20 per kg of infectious waste. As on Dec 2001 there were 400 institutions including nursing homes, labs and blood banks which were registered. CONCLUSION: After analyzing the results of study it was felt that there is an urgent need to standardize the infrastructural requirement so that hospitals following BMW rules strictly do not suffer additional costs.