Evaluation of National Patient Safety Implementation Framework in Selected Public Healthcare Facilities of Tamil Nadu: An Operational Research

BackgroundThe Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has introduced the "National Patient Safety Implementation Framework" to ensure the patient safety at different levels of healthcare delivery system. However, there is limited effort made in evaluating the implementation status of this framework. Hence, we have performed the process evaluation of National Patient Safety Implementation Framework across the public healthcare facilities in Tamil Nadu.MethodsThis was a facility-level survey conducted by research assistants who visited 18 public health facilities across 6 districts of Tamil Nadu, India, for the purpose of documenting the presence of structural support systems and strategies to promote patient safety. We developed a tool for data collection based on the framework. It comprised a total of 100 indicators under the following domains and subdomains: structural support, systems for reporting, workforce, infection prevention and control, biomedical waste management, sterile supplies, blood safety, injection safety, surgical safety, antimicrobial safety, and COVID-19 safety.ResultsOnly one facility (subdistrict hospital) belonged to the high-performing category with a score of 79.5 on the implementation of patient safety practices. About 11 facilities (4 medical colleges and 7 Government Hospitals) belonging to medium-performing category. The best-performing medical college had a score of 61.5 for patient safety practices. Six facilities (2 medical colleges, 4 Government Hospitals) belonged to low-performing category in terms of patient safety. The least-performing facilities (both subdistrict hospitals) had scores of 29.5 and 26 for patient safety practices, respectively. Because of COVID-19, there was a positive effect on biomedical waste management and infectious disease safety across all facilities. Most performed poor in the domain with structural systems to support quality and efficiency of healthcare and patient safety.ConclusionsThe study concludes that based on the current situation of patient safety practices in public health facilities, it will be difficult to perform full-fledged implementation of patient safety framework by the year 2025.