Sankara Nethralaya News
Sankara Nethralaya Consultants exhibit all round understanding and clarity of thought and expression in a critical branch of ophthalmology.
The Ocular Trauma Society – India, conducted its IX Annual Meet at Sri Sankaradeva Nethralaya, Guwahati, Assam on the 31st of October and 1st November 2015, to update and advance ophthalmic knowledge in Ocular Trauma, the meet witnessed the participation of delegates consisting of leading Consultant Ophthalmologists, Facio-Maxillary Surgeons, Plastic Surgeons, Radiologists and Neurologists along with Residents and Fellows from across India and abroad. A video presentation by Dr Kirthi Koka, Senior Resident, Department of Orbit, Oculoplasty, Reconstructive and Aesthetics,Sankara Nethralaya was adjudged as the ‘Best Video’ he was also chosen as the ‘Best Presenter’ in the ‘Challenging Cases’ category. Dr. Mohomed Shahid Alam, Associate Consultant from the same department was adjudged as the ‘Best Speaker’ in the ‘Free Paper’ session conducted at the venue.
Sankara Nethralaya family congratulates the winners and wishes them many more laurels in the critical field that they have chosen to specialize.
The Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Mission Trust now has a brand new website address!
We would like to draw your kind attention that the website address of Sankara Nethralaya OM Trust, Inc, USA, the awareness creation and fund raising arm of Sankara Nethralaya has been changed from www.omtrust.org to www.sankaranethralayausa.org
We are sure that you would agree that having the words ‘Sankara Nethralaya’ in the website URL would facilitate better brand recall and also help in identifying and underlining the relationship between the fund raising body and the parent institution, to browsers and potential donors.
We request you to kindly share this information with your circle of friends and contacts to help us spread the word fast.
Glaucoma Fellows from Sankara Nethralaya shed valuable light on the ‘Silent thief of Sight’ at major topical meet.
The glaucoma society of India held its Silver Jubilee meeting titled ‘Glaucoma Connect 2015’ at Mumbai from the 2nd to 4th of October 2015. Glaucoma Fellows from Sankara Nethralaya demonstrated their subject matter expertise and deep understanding of the vision impairing ailment through a well researched Poster and by winning an elaborate quiz contest covering all the parameters of the ailment.
While Dr. Priya Delampady’s well researched Poster titled ‘Correlation of defect depth and defect pattern of Central Visual Fields with mGCC of OCT’ was adjudged the ‘BEST PAPER’ among a total of 45 entries from all over India, the Sankara Nethralaya team of Dr. Kaivan Shah and Dr. Amit Pandey stood second in the quiz contest held on the occasion and received their prize from Dr. Vinay Nangia, President, Glaucoma Society of India. A total of 9 teams (18 players) from all over the country including Madras Medical College, RP Centre (AIIMS), PGI Chandigarh, L.V.Prasad Eye Institute, Narayana Nethralaya to name a few participated in the quiz. The preliminary round of the quiz was held on 2nd of October 2015 which included a written multiple choice question test and the main quiz was held on 3rd October-2015.
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy’s 2nd batch of Healthcare Quality Management program receives enthusiastic response.
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy (TSNA), the academic arm of its illustrious parent institution and world class eye care provider is committed to sharing the knowledge and experience of its parent institution to enhance the overall functioning of the Medicare industry, by improving every one of its multiple facets.
The need for better and more professional management of hospitals and better healthcare delivery became imperative in view of greater awareness levels and rising expectations of patients and their families, entry of Indian and overseas players into the health care industry, India especially South India becoming a preferred healthcare destination of patients from all over the world and the disturbing increase and complexity of ailments.
This is a first of its kind in the country Certificate Course dedicated to the area of Healthcare Quality, a key concern in Hospitals today. The spurt in medical errors, accidents and high profile cases of negligence has brought the entire healthcare sector under a cloud, negating the tremendous amount of good work actually being done.
This situation can be addressed only by professionalizing Hospital services and making quality as the very basis and crux in every aspect of the healthcare delivery, thereby ensuring Hospitals are safe and patient centric and the treatment provided is effective, producing the desired outcomes.
Realising this most critical need, The Sankara Nethralaya Academy, an academic wing of Sankara Nethralaya, the epitome of healthcare quality in the country, ACME Consulting, India’s largest Healthcare Quality Advisory and Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), the only countrywide association of Hospitals in the country have joined hands to develop this Certificate Course that will help all categories of hospital staff right from Doctors, Nurses and Administrators to Radiographers, Lab Technicians and other Support Staff to become active participants in the Quality Improvement of their respective Hospitals.
This course was conducted at the Sankara Nethralaya main campus every Saturday afternoon, between 2pm and 5pm over the next 12 weeks.
The Course was well received with senior management Personnel like Directors, Medical Professionals, Management Executives from reputed healthcare institutions both domestic enrolling in it.
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy (TSNA) addresses the challenges of healthcare marketing
As part of its holistic approach to the management and delivery of healthcare and enhancing every facet of it, the Sankara Nethralaya Academy the academic arm of Sankara Nethralaya, a unit of Medical Research Foundation conducted an in-depth session on one of the most challenging and relatively untouched field of healthcare marketing. The session titled “Healthcare Marketing” was held on Saturday, 10th October 2015
Healthcare marketing assumes critical importance in view of the corporatization of health care delivery, the emergence of India especially Chennai as a preferred national and international health care destination, the entry of a large number of players into the healthcare arena, greater awareness and rising expectation of patients and their families have made health care delivery a highly exciting and competitive activity.
It should be borne in mind that health care as a service was not professionally marketed in the past. As a sunrise activity healthcare marketing does not have precedents to learn from, it is also governed by norms and ethics laid down by the Health Ministry.
The session was conducted by highly qualified and experience professionals like Mr Murali Subramanian, professor of healthcare marketing, Indian Institute of Knowledge Management (IIKM) and Visiting Management faculty to Sankara Nethralaya Academy, LIBA,etc.
The session was highly informative with a high level of interactivity. The participants had lots of fun as they played various roles as a part of real-time learning. The feedback given by the participants was excellent.
Mr A. Mahalingam, the Deputy Registrar of the Sankara Nethralaya Academy took this opportunity to wish the participants for their cooperation and successful completion of this session
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy (TSNA) conducts an informative session on effective medical governance on 05.09.2015
Dr. B. Krishnamurthy, Director, Quality Management Services, PES Institute of Medical Sciences Research, Kuppam, Andra Pradesh
Sankara Nethralaya Academy’s Certificate program on Health care quality management, both offline and online that included a session on a critical topic “Medical Governance”, got off to a vibrant start at the Sankara Nethralaya main campus on 05.09.2015 by Dr. B. Krishnamurthy, Director, Quality Management Services, PES Institute of Medical Sciences Research, Kuppam, AP
Sri A Mahalingam, Assistant Registrar, TSNA welcomed the gathering and extended his extensive support to online streaming of the session. Welcoming the Chief Guest Shrimathi Shyamala Selvaraj, DGM-Quality Management, introduced Dr. Krishnamurthy as an Anaesthesiologist and adult Intensivist trained in India and UK with over 30 years of clinical experience in provision of acute care in Anesthesia and Adult Critical Care. She added that, he has devoted himself to helping various hospitals set up Quality and Safety Management programmes and achieve certification and accreditation in the last five years, been a principal assessor and Trainer, NABH and an Honorary Advisor to AHPI.
Dr Krishnamurthy in his lecture pointed that Medical Governance formed an integral part of Leadership and Governance that referred to both Corporate and Clinical Governance, objectives and duties of Health care organisations to efficiently manage the finances of the organisation and achieve optimal level of patient safety.
Extensively covering on Clinical Governance, he observed that the spectrum included Clinical audit, clinical effectiveness, R&D, Openness, Risk management, Education and training, that cyclic process which standardised, constantly and qualitatively improving clinical care by identifying problems, risks, safety standards, update of technical knowhow through training methodologies that resulted in Continuing Professional Development.
Quoting Stephen R. Covey an expert on effective and efficient management, Dr Krishnamurthy pointed that effective leadership included multiple management systems such as Information Security Management systems, Emergency and Food safety management systems. He explained the vital role of communication skills in Health care setting, to imply diagnostic accuracy, patient safety and compliance.
Explaining the nuances of Clinical Audit from definition of clinical audit as a systematic review of care against explicit criteria and implementation of change, he observed that in any Health care organisation, several aspects Internal, External, Financial auditing, Sentinel Event monitoring, Quality and Safety Indicator monitoring, Medical record review, safety survey all formed the crux of Audit assessments and surveys.
Dr Krishnamurthy elaborated that Clinical Audit process should include identifying issues, setting criteria and standards, data collection, comparison of performance vs criteria and standards and implementation of changes.
The high power session ended with a vote of thanks after a brief Q & A session.
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy (TSNA) Conducted a Session on Role of Human Resource Management in Healthcare on 3rd October 2015.
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy conducted a training program on Saturday 3rd October 2015 on the topic “Human Resource for Healthcare Managers” for the Certificate course on Hospital Management Program.
The session started with a warm welcome note and the need for this unique session on Human Resource for healthcare managers by Shri A. Mahalingam, Deputy Registrar of the institution, he also highlighted that this session is aims to provide participants a comprehensive understanding and practical insight into the knowledge skills and techniques required to efficiently tackle the HR issues in the present scenario.
Prof Ramakrishnan is a senior HR Management faculty with 4 decades of experience in HR Practices and Teaching in leading Business schools. He is also visiting faculty for management programs at Sankara Nethralaya Academy is the speaker for this unique program.
Starting off with the scenario of the health care sector in India, the module covered the key functions of HR viz Talent Acquisition, Training, Performance Management system, Career & Succession Planning & Employee Health, Safety & Welfare.
The other aspects like Employee Retention, Job Rotation, and Employee Satisfaction & Grievance Handling also formed part of the program.
In the concluding part of the session, the participants were divided into small groups wherein each group had to come up with a challenge faced by HR in the health care sector or at their workplace and also explain on how they would overcome the said challenge with suitable solutions and processes that would be followed.
The participants put forth a lot of questions and were enthusiastic throughout the session and the session ended with vote of thanks. The feedback given by the participants was excellent.
Senior Healthcare professionals find The Sankara Nethralaya Academy`s Hospital Financial Management Course Outstanding
The Sankara Nethralaya Academy conducted a training program on Saturday 26th September 2015 on the topic “Finance for Hospital Administrators” for the Certificate course on Hospital Management
The genesis and milestones of Sankara Nethralaya and The Sankara Nethralaya Academy (TSNA) were detailed by Mr. A Mahalingam, Deputy Registrar, TSNA when he presented a virtual tour of both the institutions functioning under the visionary leadership of Dr. SS Badrinath – The Founder – The Sankara Nethralaya Academy and Chairman Emeritus – Sankara Nethralaya, Medical Research Foundation.
Shri P.R. Ravindran, a Chartered-cum-Cost Accountant and former Chief General Manager of Sankara Nethralaya, took the session for three hours on the topic, to enable doctors, managers and executives in hospitals.
• Appreciate the role of and understand the implications of finance on corporate/institution’s activities.
• Understand financial statements and analyze them.
• Be in a better position to discuss the subject with finance managers in their organization.
The Program mainly covered, understanding financial statements like, Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Account, Ratio Analysis for review of Performance, Working Capital Management, Cash flow Management and Basic principles of Costing.
The methodology of the Programme mainly focused on real life examples, like Apollo Hospitals Financial Statements and a lively case study on Costing of a Surgery.
Finally the session was concluded with tips on Personal financial planning for the benefit of each individual Personal financial planning is an important necessity for each one of us who seeks financial control of our affairs and wishes to create wealth.
It is a process of assessing your financial situation, identifying your financial goals, determining your objectives and formulating a plan to achieve them in a most professional way. It involves adopting suitable plans or tactics to combine an individual’s or family’s financial goals, including risk management, investment planning, retirement planning, and tax planning.
It is all about knowing where in life do you stand financially and taking control of it and drive it in the proper direction to reach the destination easily and with in the targeted time.
Defining the objectives is the focus of planning and making a strategy to achieve the predefined objective is the root of planning. It is the process of keeping your goals and aims in mind, select a financial product or investments in other assets that fits in your expectations and finally helps you in achieving your goals as desired by you.
Sankara Nethralaya conducts a camp for the revival of ‘vision’ as its tribute and homage to a great ‘Visionary’
Former President of India Bharath Ratna APJ Abdul Kalam was a great admirer and well wisher of Sankara Nethralaya, a man deeply committed to the cause of ‘Research’ and its benefits accruing to the public at large, the eminent man of science had made laudatory observations of its intensive research and hailed it as a ‘Temple of the Eye’. The institution he had reposed his faith, paid a befitting tribute and homage to the missile man by conducting a cost free eye screening and ‘on the spot’ cataract surgery camp deploying the most advance ‘Mobile Eye Surgical Unit’ (MESU) at India’s rocket city Sriharikota, under the aegis of the Satish Dhawan Space Research Centre. A Valedictory function of the camp was held on the 13th of September 2015 with Dr. P.Kunnihikrishnan, Director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, gracing the occasion as the Chief Guest and attended by Dr. SS.Badrinath. Founder and Chairman Emeritus , Sankara Nethralaya, Dr.Vasanthi Badrinath, Shri Raja Reddy, Controller, SDSRC, Srimathi.T.Haritha, Junior Civil Judge, Sullurpet and other eminent people from the neighbourhood.
Speaking on the occasion Dr. Kunnihikrishanan observed that the Mobile Eye Surgical Unit is a marvel of technology and its invaluable service to the local population reiterated his institution’s philosophy of being not only a space technology and research institution but a very humane institution in constant interface and service to the local people. Srimathi T.Haritha Sub-Judge, Sullurpet observed that the yeoman service rendered by Sankara Nethralaya and the MESU reiterated her faith in the service orientation of the medical profession. Breaking the good news that the MESU has recently received the sanction and approval of the Union Health Ministry to operate on a nationwide basis, Dr SS.Badrinath used the occasion to explain that the real worth of the hard work, research and cost that has gone into the designing of MESU would become worthwhile and its relevance to society would become a reality only if corporate bodies and institutions across the nation support its endeavours by adopting it as their Corporate Social Responsibility and operate it in their regions, he expressed his willingness to impart training to the outdoor teams of any organization planning to embark on such camps. He expressed his sincere thanks to SHAR for the kind hospitality and arrangements, the outdoor team manning the MESU camp, the local villagers for reposing their faith and turning up in good numbers. He used the occasion to acknowledge his sincere gratitude to Dr. Satya Atluri the World renowned Mechanical and Aerospace scientist and well wisher of Sankara Nethralaya settled in the USA hailing from Gudivada, for his generous support of cost free community ophthalmology services back in his home State of Andhra Pradesh and how it has helped in conducting such camps and also contributed towards setting up the Sri City Sankara Nethralaya at Nellore, he made an emphatic appeal to the residents of Sullurpet to support the MESU by donating to the cause of taking advanced Cataract surgery, right to the doorsteps of poor patients living in the most remote regions and help it to reach more and more backward regions of the State and revive the eye sight more number of people.
A total of 606 were screened and 120 of them underwent on the spot cataract surgery at the camp while a total of 380 were referred to Sankara Nethralaya’s base hospitals at Sri City and Chennai.
Sankara Nethralaya takes a critical overview at the most common cause of visual impairment in the country.
As an ophthalmic institution in the forefront of eradicating blindness and reviving the ‘Light of Vision’, Sankara Nethralaya has always been concerned about the high incidence of Cataract, the leading cause of blindness in the country and lack of awareness about it among the general public. While Cataract removal surgery is among the most simple of ophthalmic processes and Cataract caused blindness is the most easily reversible form of blindness, there are many aspects of Cataract which are blurred, grey and unclear quite typical of the symptoms the ailment manifests itself. Sankara Nethralaya is engaged in combating the illness everyday through the large number of Cataract removal surgeries carried out at its centers, Cataract screening at its various outdoor camps including ‘On the spot Surgeries’ carried out by the Mobile Eye Surgical Unit (MESU). It is also engaged in focused research in finding out the cause of the disease including the possibility of delaying its onset and prevention.
Sankara Nethralaya recently conducted a workshop titled ‘Cataract Catalyst 2015’ as a continuing medical education initiative to share knowledge and expertise among the eye care professionals from different sub-specialties of ophthalmology to tackle the complex situations arising in Cataract surgery and evolve best practices in Cataract care, which is not currently governed by definitive protocols, through a vibrant exchange of knowledge and hands on experience. The workshop evoked enthusiastic response from a cross section of ophthalmologists; the highlights of the CME were a potpourri of panel discussions, talks from specialists across the city and poster presentations, a debate on current ophthalmic practice and a quiz. The CME was attended by 160 ophthalmologists and witnessed interactive participation by all attendees. There was a video and poster presentation competition also. The best video was awarded to Dr. Seema from Arvind Eye Hospital, Pondicherry and the best poster was won by Dr. Vijeyenthi /Dr Rajesh P S from Sankara Nethralaya for the study on surgeries done in the MESU camps.