Internship Report: Patient Aid Foundation

Departments Function Patient aid foundation (PAF) is an organization working inside JPMC to alleviate the burden of growing patients day by day in Jinnah Hospital. Patient Aid Foundation (PAF) have the footprint in almost 14 departments inside Jinnah hospital. Recently PAF started many research based projects under which one of them was, ISO certification for the blood bank of JPMC by improving its quality management system (QMS). Blood bank of Jinnah Hospital is one of the largest blood bank of Pakistan where they perform free blood tests and giving free blood to needy patients who can’t afford it. It was a research based project in which we as a team analyzed many scenario related to QMS systems of the blood bank. Along with that i have learned how to work in a team, how to deal with conflict among the group members. Under this project i was exposed to many issues regarding quality management control and designed plans to overcome those issues. This project also helped me improve my supervisory skills and audit skills which surely gone help me in the cooperate world.

Task in the Research

Under this project we were assigned to take out gaps from management processes, staff behavior with patients, tool, outdated machines, dress code policy, payroll, compensation plan and infrastructure of blood bank along with supervise the whole procedure which was followed by blood bank and comparing it with ISO Standards of quality management system. To have a practical look under this project Patient Aid Foundation (PAF) arranged official visits of different ISO certified blood banks of Karachi. In all those visits of other ISO certified blood banks functioning in the Karachi like Hussani blood bank, we are supposed to ask them how they are following and maintaining the requirements of ISO certification. In 3rd and last step we need to submit a detailed report on all those gaps we had found in our whole research work which needs to be filled along with containing plans and strategy (Recommendation) to overcome those quality management systems issues.

Statement of Problem

The Blood bank of JPMC was suffering from many quality measures. As it related to the field of medical and concern of humans life it was strongly recommended in their vision and mission to strongly follow the standard procedure but due to lake of resources and effective leadership the lost their standards and it was a serious issue. Recently patient aid foundation (PAF) had undertook the partial control of the Blood bank- JPMC. They started their mission to improve its quality management control and take it to the international standers which is the ISO certification project. For this project they hired Ac’s consultants and volunteers from different universities to help them achieve their targets in mean time.

Scope of Inquir

Under this project we went to visit the Hussaini blood bank, North Nizamabad where Sir Umar Daraz (manager Hussani blood bank) helped us to show how an ISO certified blood bank function. Another visit was conducted inside JPMC lab which is also ISO certified where Dr. Naila Iqbal (head of the lab) guided about the initial stages of ISO certification and briefly described the documentation process required for ISO certification. These two visits become the main source of our research to be formed. From these visits we receive an idea what are the major issues JPMC-blood bank facing and how they can be overcome these issues. After comparing the blood bank procedure with other standard blood banks and labs we found the depth of the issue. It last we start moving towards the final stage which is making strategies, plans and giving recommendation to resolve all issues. During this stage Sir Moinuddin Ahmed (Manager JPMC blood bank) and the whole staff of the blood bank helped us to develop a strong recommendation phase by their valuable feed backs.

Data Presentation

In the findings part, we have found many drawbacks under which blood bank staff was working but still the staff were devoted with their task.

• Staff was not dealing with patients politely.
• Infrastructure of the blood bank not suit its management process.
• Lab area was not sealed.
• Electrical panels do not have a separate store.
• All records regarding inventory and patients related information are still maintained manually rather than on computer systems.
• Congested area.
• Staff don’t follow bio-safety instructions.
• Almost every patients and its attendant have excess to the lab area.
• Competitive Pay Structure.
• Store Room of “Consumables and Kits” were not cleaned.
• Outdated “Centrifuge” Machines.
• Shortage of staff.
• Water cooler were not installed for patients.
• Post donation care leaflets were not given to patients.
• Because it was Underground place people inside face mobile signals issues.

Conclusion

Under this research project we found that JPMC-Blood Bank is suffering from many issues like effectively dealing with patients, infrastructure of the blood bank not matching ISO requirements, accessible lab area, electrical panels in open area, manual record of inventory. Under the major issues the “Space” was one of major hurdle to control the quality management process the very small space which was given to blood bank as it is a public base hospital because of their huge workload the staff was suffering from quality issues. Another major problem was there was not any proper hindrance created for an outsider to enter inside blood bank even to the lab area and storage area. On the basis of facts and figures we found and asked them to implement all recommendations we suggest them looking at the ISO standards and other ISO certified blood banks.