After nearly sixteen years, I recently travelled Bangladesh and stayed more than three weeks-travelling, meeting people and examining the immense changes in Bangladesh. I had the opportunity to view not through the eyes of a tourist, but through the eyes of an experienced healthcare scientist who felt and saw the tremendous accomplishments that Bangladesh has been made despite all negative movement. I was amazed seeing all signs of a robust and thriving economy.
What stroked me was the anxiety with the hospitals being built and their standard of services to the patients. Quality management remains an elusive dream. The cost of treatment varies very much from hospital to hospital. There was not enough historical data of what it costs for the treatment of a particular condition.
Healthcare is very expensive in western countries. Therefore, the insurance companies and private hospitals in the USA are encouraging patients to travel to India, Abu Dhabi, Thailand, Singapore, Greece and Italy for treatment. The USA based healthcare companies are now outsourcing their healthcare services in the overseas either through joint venture initiative or opening their own state-of-the-art hospital facilities. The goals are to provide comparable healthcare services to their own patients as well as to the international communities with a reasonable cost.
Like call centers and IT business; healthcare services are promising field especially the diagnostic and imaging services, cosmetic and regular surgery, and short-term treatments. It is time to act and develop clear strategies to motivate these potential healthcare companies to expand their services in Bangladesh. It will not only create thousand of new jobs but also provide better treatment opportunity to the local people. Here are few suggestions to be considered:
- The ministry of health, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, hospitals and business schools should work together and develop clear plan for getting attention to the potential healthcare companies.
- Send highly trained professionals to the international professional meetings and potential healthcare companies to promote our ability to the international community.
- Revise the curriculum in medical, nursing and pharmacy schools that train healthcare professionals, so that they are trained according to the new international paradigm.
- Encourage business schools to develop executive training programmers in healthcare, which will effectively reduce the talent gap for leadership in this area.
- Develop and implement international standard examination by which doctors, nurses and pharmacists are qualified for employment in the Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited organisations.
- Encourage local hospitals to evaluate their services by JCI and meet their compliances.
- Utilise and apply medical information systems that encourage the use of evidence-based medicine, guidelines and protocols as well as electronic prescribing in inpatient and outpatient settings.
- Develop partnerships between the western and local hospital that design newer ways to deliver healthcare.
- The government should appoint a commission, which makes recommendations for the healthcare system and monitors its performance.
It is time to think, commence the debate, develop a clear plan and execute it. It has been done in many countries and I am confident it can be done in Bangladesh too.
