standards and Health Awareness among the public

As a professional, we are striving to give the best to our people who approach us. For this we constantly update ourselves and bring the current and the best accepted international standards we acquire to the place we practice our profession. The traditional models of spreading the awareness of @this provision of the current best practices, had been one of the following.

1. Patients who have benefited spreading the information. In India this had been the best method so far but it takes time. But the problem here can be the mass followers who may be barking at the wrong tree for sometime before realising!

2. Media and news and not everyone will have equal access to them

3. Presentations to our learned colleagues who in turn will spread the news! as it were. These can me informal meets, formal meetings and publications

4. Self advertising by the professional or the hospital itself. But there are no restrictions at the moment on these and can mislead to wrong treatment or health care.

But i think there is another way which is to make the health care delivery and advances to be transparent for the end user i.e the patient and the relatives to make their own informed choice. Though this may not be applicable universally at the moment to the common man in India, i feel that this is the best way.

This would involve in making the options available to the end user directly.

I may be wrong as the UK health care delivery model is completely opposite in that it sets the standards for the professional to practice and frees the end user in making these complex decisions of choosing.

For India this UK model will not be acceptable and the end user i.e the patient has to make lot of the decisions in choosing!. Hence the best way forward would be to make the best available options of healthcare transparent and widely available to the common man.

One needs to be very careful in choosing what is best and accepted current practice to be able to present them. We are at the moment started analysing this as a project and i will let you know the outcome soon!

Regards

Chockalingam