Health Ministry Launches Hospital Safety Index & Green Assessment Course

Francis Longsworth

The Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization officially launched the Hospital Safety Index and Green Assessment Course today in Belmopan.  The idea is to introduce locally what is known elsewhere as a smart hospital, to respond to a technologically driven environment of care and prepare for its evolution in the future.  Healthcare providers must consider bolstering the patient experience both inside their facilities and out through a keen focus on connectivity, communication and access to information.

Dr. Francis Longsworth, Consultant, PAHO

“This project has been several years in the making and it started as a pilot project in the Eastern Caribbean, specifically on the islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines where a pilot project was undertaken in 2012-2013 to smarten up the health facility with the concepts of the smart hospital.  And the hospital in question, I believe, was the Georgetown Hospital and as a pilot, this was so hugely successful as a pilot that the UK government and the department for international development out of the UK, sponsored a phase two and contributed several million pounds which I believe Mr. Hughes could outline for us.  And again the phase two got off to such a huge start in 2015 that by 2016, by May of this year or April of this year, it had evolved and was phased up again one more level and included in that increase the countries of Belize, Jamaica and Guyana. The smart health facilities initiative builds on the hospital safety index which is a tool that was developed in 2005 and 2012 and this has proven to be so attractive as a means of risk reduction in health that in the phase two once again, the UK and DIFD increased the funding, this time exponentially.  So a lot more money was put into phase two than had been put into the early part of the project.”

The course runs through to Friday.