Achievements of today are the stepping stones for success tomorrow!

Suganya ^a,* , Ananthi^b , Sathya^c , Keerthana^d

^aInfection Control Nurse, Kauvery Hospital, Tennur, Trichy

^bNursing Incharge, Kauvery Hospital, Tennur, Trichy

^cStaff Nurse, Kauvery Hospital, Tennur, Trichy

^dClinical Pharmacist, Kauvery Hospital, Tennur, Trichy

*Correspondence: Tel: +91 9361388804; email: maha@kauveryhospital.com

Background

Over the years, organizations have been successfully practicing Quality Circle for excellence. Organizations have realized that survival and growth in today’s competitive environment need Quality Circle – Continuous Improvement. Quality Circle applies to all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers – in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, management, and for us in Health Care.

Quality Circle refers to the group of individuals who meet to discuss work-related challenges. The purpose behind the formation of quality circle is to motivate employees to share the problems affecting their work area, develop solutions and help in improving the performance of the organization as a whole.

A Quality Circle is a participatory management technique to manage and improve the quality of the entire organization. The power of a Quality Circle comes from mutual trust between managers and employees, which lead to more mutual understanding. The purpose of a Quality Circle is to build a good relationship with employees, so that they would show more interest and devotion in the work they do. CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) organized 35th QC (Quality Circle) Competition on 23rd Sep 2022 Chennai.

Categories of Award

They selected the top three teams from large, medium scale members from the Manufacturing sector, Process sector Service sectors. Kauvery Hospital, Tennur had applied under the category Service sector, and we presented the QC topic on To reduce the higher-end antibiotic usage at hospital wards.

Problem and Solution

The higher-end antibiotic usage was high in critical wards. This problem was identified during the higher-end antibiotic audit. Due to this, the duration of patient’s hospital stay, medical cost, and antimicrobial resistance were observed to have increased. We analyzed and discussed the higher-end antibiotic usage. We created paired blood sample tariff (Aerobic, Anaerobic) and made it mandatory that blood cultures would be sent to all patients before starting higher- end antibiotics. We started to monitor the usage of higher-end antibiotics and the adherence to its escalation & de-escalation policy. In this manner, we could reduce the higher-end antibiotic usage in critical wards from 17% to 6%. This led to improvement in the quality of patient care, patient safety, and greater satisfaction for doctors, staff, patients, and attendees. We could also reduce antimicrobial resistance, the length of hospital stay of the patient, and the cost of their care at the hospital. Our clinical team discussed and decided to present this topic for the QC Competition.

Experience with the QC competition

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized its 35th Tamil Nadu State level Quality Circle Competition 2022. Around 220 members and 39 companies participated in this competition. Kauvery Hospital, Tennur team was awarded the Second prize under the service sector category. We felt truly honoured to receive this award at the quality circle. It was one of the best experiences in our professional career. We are truly obliged for this great honour and recognition given by the management.

Initially, we expected that it would be really difficult to accomplish the desired result within the time stipulated. Without support and guidance, we could not have achieved this success. We are thankful to our nursing superintendent who walked along with us; she has given us so much trust and provided unconditional support to us. We would say, it was the teamwork and the never-ending belief in our hard work and honesty that achieved success in our mission. The project was also very close to all our hearts because we wished to reduce higher-end antibiotics usage in our wards. We are very glad to announce that we did it! The entire journey was a learning experience. We are more energized and charged to take up new and challenging projects which would work for the benefit of our organization.