Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Kochi

Kochi based Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre (AIMS) started from a 115 beds Hospital with five departments and staff strength of 400 staff in 1998. Today, this Hospital has grown to 1250 beds, 34 clinical departments, 50 speciality clinics, 450 full-time faculties and employee strength of 3500 with highest number of critical beds in the country viz. 210 and 24 theaters. 2200—2500 patients visit the Hospital OPD per day.

Significant Achievements in the Last Year

AIMS has displayed significant achievements in almost all spheres of healthcare in the past one year. It has signed an Indo-US collaboration with 15 major universities for educational programmes. The Government of Maharashtra has signed a project with the Hospital to implement hospital information system in all medical colleges and district hospitals in the state. If this is not enough, Government of India has signed a pan African telemedicine project with AIMS to help African countries with tele-consulting.

New Initiatives

AIMS plans to develop a 200 extended care facility for ambulatory care. "We are charting out a plan of comfortable high class facility for medical travel and a city center for reaching the community," says Dr Sanjeev Singh, Senior Medical Administrator. The focus of the Hospital is also on postgraduate programmes in all broad and super-specialty branches. It also plans to expand on its outreach programmes with more talukas and villages to be adopted for improving patient-care and health education. The Hospital is also developing a medical informatics and surgical simulation learning tools for doctors.

Adoption of New Technology

"AIMS is developing medical informatics and surgical simulation learning tools for doctors" - Dr Sanjeev Singh, Senior Medical Administrator Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre

All newer technologies, which are useful for improving patient care are adopted and integrated in the Hospital on immediate basis. It has adopted an electronic patient record system in OPD and IPDs. The 1800 computer terminals in the Hospital has made AIMS a fully integrated and networked hospital. "30,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art institute of research and molecular medicine and nanotechnology, fully mechanised hospital management system and support services are the highlights of our hospital," states Dr Singh. Flat panel cath lab, 3D advanced echo, electrophysiology and radiofrequency ablational, two linear accelerator, IMRT, cardiac simulator, quality assurance imaging equipment, 80 ventilators, brain navigational lab, radio-surgery, stereo tactic surgery, interventional polystar, two high-end MRI with 64 slice cardiac CT are the other additions in the long list of novel medical technology adopted by the Hospital. The Hospital fully believes in energy conservation and has started a fully functional waste water treatment plant, a potable water treatment plant and rainwater harvesting farms in the Hospital.

Quality and Patient Friendliness

The Hospital swears of high powered multi-disciplinary committee and a regular assessment of OP and IP patient satisfaction surveys. Incident reporting, sentinel event reporting and action taken report are a part of its everyday operations. "Regular internal and external audits, regular patient feedback rounds by management representatives and supervisors and preventive maintenance rounds for patient, employee and environment safety are the other areas on which we have focused on," says Dr Singh. The Hospital has started a six hour complain addressal mechanism as well as on line complaint addressal mechanism for its patients.