Hospitals must update kin on patients’ health: Panel
Times of India | 26 July 2024
Kolkata: The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission (WBCERC) is set to issue an advisory, asking private hospitals to regularly update families about the patients’ medical conditions either on the mobile number or the email address registered during admission. This will ensure more transparency and lessen the grounds for grievances, feel the panel.
“ Around 70% complaints are owing to lack of proper counselling, especially of families of critically ill patients. We have decided to issue an advisory by Tuesday, asking hospitals to update patient families regularly on the patients’ condition,” said Justice (retd) Ashim Kumar Banerjee, the panel chairman. The update will include details, such as the diagnosis, suggested prognosis, medications and investigative results, which will be system-generated and sent to the registered mobile or email of the patients’ family. Such updates will be given daily for critical patients and on alternate days for others.
The health commission said they came across many cases, in which after patients died, their families claimed they were not told about the criticality of the persons’ conditions. “We hope this measure will reduce complaints by families that they were not counselled properly on the patients’ conditions. This will not only maintain better transparency of treatment but also relieve the commission of unnecessary complaints,” added Banerjee.
Earlier, the health panel had asked hospitals to regularly update patients’ families about billing.