CAHOCON 2019
5th International Conference of the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations
The 5th International Conference of the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations was held by CAHO (Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations) in order to engage with various stakeholders to promote quality in healthcare delivery. It is an event that is keenly anticipated for sharing best practices among hospitals as well as labs and is rotated among various cities in India. This year the theme was “Healthcare Quality should impact Outcomes” and it was held in Mumbai.
More than 700 delegates which included healthcare leaders and policymakers attended the conclave and deliberated on the theme through back to back sessions which included workshops, research presentations, panel discussions and presentation of quality improvement projects and posters. Various awards were handed over to motivate further the inculcation of quality efforts by the grassroots practitioners among the various healthcare providers in India.
The knowledge partners in this year’s conference included the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua), the Asian Society for Quality in Health Care (ASQua), Quality Council of India and some others.
CAHO should be congratulated for putting together an intellectually stimulating and well thought out scientific programme over the 2 days. It started out with some plenary sessions on the impact of accreditation on clinical outcomes, patient experience and an Indian perspective on these issues. There was a challenging presentation on steps to change medical education to improve healthcare outcomes as well as technology to measure, monitor and improve outcomes. There was an excellent debate on whether accreditation is a boon or bane? A mythological Indian character was even brought to life in this debate to add spice to the proceedings. Patient perspectives and other media to promote accreditation was explored with the participation of an actress who had a life-changing medical diagnosis and directors as well as broadcast journalists who added their views to the lively healthcare debate that is a focus of the current Indian elections. The launch of some lab standards was also held at this conference.
I presented a talk on the impact of accreditation on clinical programmes as well as chairing a session on process excellence which included 4 papers on Indian research work in this area.
CAHO is a progressive quality group having a wide network in India with state and zonal representatives. They intend to move forward with the ISQua Fellowship programme with Indian content a la the Taiwan model, seek ISQua endorsement of CAHO Training modules on Quality and Safety in Hospitals as well as collaborate with ISQua on a medical undergraduate programme to be used in India. I would foresee that ISQua will have a stronger presence in India with CAHO collaboration.
Ravindran Jegasothy
ISQua Expert
