3M Begins Drive Against Contamination In Surgical Environment

3M Health Care, the healthcare division of 3M India and a diversified technology driven company known for its innovative products and solutions, organized a speaker programme on "Controlling Contamination in the Sterile Field" in Bangalore on January 24.

This comes in wake of the huge need for personal protection against infections not only for the patients but the hospital staff as well, a cause that 3M strongly propagates.

Infection prevention is of prime importance in every healthcare facility, including public and government institutes, nursing homes and corporate hospitals. Currently, the biggest challenge faced by the hospitals in India as far as infection control is concerned, is the ability to adequately provide knowledge updates on an ongoing basis as turn around of nursing staff in high.

Greg Skorczewski, Asepsis Specialist 3M Medical division, St Paul, USA said, "World over, it is important to prevent Surgical Site Infection in a hospital and personal protection is as important for the medical staff as much as it is for the patients. Quality improvement initiatives being followed in the United States are relevant to India too. This will be useful to all hospital administrators, physicians and other professionals.

3M also does a lot of education programs in hospitals to facilitate higher standards in patient care and Infection prevention like importance of proper instrument cleaning; I.V site management; importance of draping and importance of sterilization monitoring. As emphasis on infection control increases, newer practices and technologies will be explored to ensure safer patient outcomes.

(Ref: The Chronicle Pharmabiz dated 31, January 2008)

Wockhardt Hospitals To Expand In Metros, Tier-II cities

Wockhardt Hospitals Limited, which is going public for its expansion plans, intends to establish additional healthcare facilities across India through a series of Greenfield and Brownfield projects. The expansions will take place in Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Hyderabad and New Delhi. This will take the total number of hospitals from 15 to 31 by 2010.

The Group is currently expanding its bed capacity at Wockhardt at Mulund in Mumbai and building new hospitals in southern and northern Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkatta. It is pursuing Brownfield projects in selected Tier II cities such as Madgaon (Goa), Bhopal, Nashik, Bhavnagar, Ludhiana, Jabalpur, Bhuj, Patna Hubli and Varanasi. "In many of the Tier II cities, we expect to be among the first major private healthcare service providers to commence tertiary care operations", stated Ani] V Kamath, managing director, Wockhardt Hospitals Limited.

The hospital major will develop a network of regional specialty Intensive Care Unit (ICU) hospitals which will act as referral centres to the super specialty centres for advanced and tertiary care procedures. It has two regional ICU hospitals in Vashi at Mumbai and Chord Road in Bangalore. These are 40-50 ICU bed centres manned with 30 doctors and trained intensive care specialists. "In the long term, our ICU network strategy will contribute to the reduction of the average length of stay at the super specialty hospitals," stated the Wockhardt Hospitals chief.

(Ref: The Chronicle Pharmabiz dated 31, January 2008)