Marking an important day for healthcare and medical safety, Hemas Hospitals commemorated Patient Safety Day 2022 on September 17, 2022. This year, the theme for Patient Safety Day is ‘Medication Safety’.

Hemas Hospitals has been a definite force in Sri Lanka’s healthcare space, showing strict and comprehensive adherence and a clear cut dedication to safety standards and protocols. The hospital is well known for its efforts, as it has shown time and time again, achieving international recognitions and accreditations- a first for hospitals in Sri Lanka.

Spearheading its drive for unconditional safety adherence is Dr. Malith B. Atapattu, Head of Medical Services and General Manager for Quality, Health and Safety at Hemas Hospitals and its Laboratory Chain.

“Saying that patients are in good hands with us is an understatement. The effort we at Hemas Hospitals put into ensuring patient safety is far beyond the minimum requirement, and we pride ourselves on being able to accomplish this feat and benchmark new standards and levels across the industry,” noted Dr. Atapattu,

“There is no doubt that patient safety is one of our main goals in maintaining our standards. We strive to properly identify patients with unhindered communication, and emphasize on medication safety, infection safety, control safety and surgical safety,” he added.

At Hemas Hospitals, patients are issued a unique identification number before proceeding with any procedures, which requires the patients’ NIC number or Passport number to leaves no room for error. The hospital utilizes electronic and online mediums to store health records and other documents, and is also in the works of developing a bio-identification system, which will be based on either fingerprints or facial recognition.

In terms of medication safety, the hospital is known to be extremely thorough, conducting routine audits, and taking quick corrective actions where necessary based on the audits. Hemas Hospitals is also the only hospital in the country to appoint a full-time clinical pharmacy and pharmacist who directly reports to Dr. Atapattu and clinical heads of the hospital.

Medication safety is also a quality indicator which is monitored closely and discussed at the board level at Hemas. The clinical pharmacist is guided by a panel of expert consultants. The medical advisory committee comprises of medical administrators who discuss medication safety with the consultants, deeming a practical and effective approach to medication safety.

A relative level of emphasis is placed on infection safety, control safety and surgical safety, and the hospital is keen on maintaining a competitive attitude among units within the hospital to create a competitive quality culture, as it annually recognizes best unit for its efforts in adhering to established standards and guidelines.

Hemas Hospitals was the only hospital to receive the COVID Safety Certificate, and in addition to adhering to the World Health Organization’s guidelines, was also the first internationally accredited hospital, being bestowed with ACHSI accreditation (Australian Council of Health Services International).

“Our good practices are what benefit our patients. Our strict adherence to safety guidelines and our rapid pursuit to change these guidelines according to those issued by these bodies is what gave us these certifications. We didn’t achieve all this just for the namesake. We are very well beyond the standards issued for COVID and other health segments, and will continue to raise the bar in standards within the healthcare space,” concluded Dr, Atapattu.