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| Food Safety - HACCP & ISO 22000:2005 |
 HACCP - short for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point is the most widely used acronym in discussions about microbial contamination issues, developed in the early 60’s by Pillsbury and NASA to provide U.S astronauts with the greatest assurance of food safety. A faithful implementation of the HACCP program will assist in the identification, documentation and control of the impacts of the potential hazards in the entire food process, from raw material procurement, transportation, pre-storage, cleaning and processing to the final storage, packing and distribution.
The ISO 22000 is the latest Standard from ISO, specifically developed for Food Safety, addresses all links in the food chain right from food growers, processors, transporters, handlers and warehouses, to even food equipment makers.
Implementation of the HACCP or the ISO 22000 in a Hospital ensures that there are no weak links in the entire Food Supply chain. Right from the procurement process, to the storing, cleaning, processing, including cooking at the Canteen and delivery to the patient’s bedside, these Standards ensure that the best of hygiene & food safety practices are followed.
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| For a Hospital concerned with providing the best level of patient care, it is incumbent that the food provided is of an equally high quality too. While many essential food safety aspects will get addressed during the Quality Management System implementation, a fool proof food safety system will need a dedicated implementation of the HACCP or the ISO 22000.
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| Hospital Environment, Occupational Health & Safety Management - ISO 14001:2004 & OHSAS 18001:2007 |
Hospitals are very environmentally sensitive places. This is why environmental protection is of great importance here. Nearly all materials which flows through a hospital bear enormous potential for damaging the internal and external environment, including the health and safety of the people involved. For example certain wastes generated that have a great ecological effect are cell poisons (cytostatics), used in cancer therapy, films and developers for the identification of diseases, as well as radioactive materials in cases of diagnosis and therapy. Even the excrements of patients can also be polluted. All these wastes can be safely managed and disposed only with the means of a comprehensive integrated Environment, Occupational Health & Safety Management.
As hospitals have to be kept always clean, they use a large amount of cleaning agents and a larger amount of good water as the cleaning medium. The good water that enters the hospital system leaves as waste water, which needs to be treated before being let into the community. This waste water contains large parts of different types of chemical detergents used for disinfection and sterilisation and have to be removed.
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| An EMS or Environment Management System is also very useful in energy savings and management. Hospitals consume huge amounts of energy, which can be effectively managed and reduced using an efficient EMS. The high-end technology used for the identification and treatment of diseases and injuries are also huge energy guzzlers. Similarly, the need for maintaining different temperature zones in a hospital too needs high use of energy. An effective EMS will pay for itself within just months of implementation in a Hospital.
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| The ISO 14001:2004 - Environment Management System is the most important and internationally reputed Environmental Management System Standard in the world designed to assist any type of organisations to meet its responsibility for securing the future condition of our environment. The Standard is designed to ensure energy and cost savings. While statutory requirements like the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules ensure a minimum level of compliance, there is rarely any form of recycling taking place thus making the Hospital environmental footprint big, smelly and expensive.
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| An ISO 14001 Environment Management System enables the Hospital Management to take up the responsibility for ensuring first that a clear environmental policy is developed. Based on this the senior management can realize that the EMS makes sense from a business perspective too and that by reducing the total amount of waste generated, significant savings can be achieved. Also by examining practices associated with waste management, discharges and resource consumption the Hospital can identify inefficiencies, leading to cost reductions.
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| Hospitals also pose serious occupation related risks to the staff and to the patients. Infection risks by direct contact with sick people, needle and medical equipment punctures where conveying blood-transmitted diseases, all these clubbed with congested layouts, on-going construction related issues and the ingress of outdoor pollutants, make management of hospital environment a necessity.
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| Thus, while the ISO 14001 helps mitigate the effects of the Hospital’s operations on the external environment, the concerns of the Doctors, Nurses and other staff employed inside the Hospital are addressed by the OHSAS 18001:2007 - Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) System, which is a mandatory requirement in all developed countries, as the ISO 14001.
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| OHSAS 18001, based on the British Standard - BS 8800 - enables an organisation to control its risks and improve its performance. It requires an organisation to conduct a risk assessment, and develop a system to manage those risks. A planned implementation of the OHSAS will enable an Organisation to manage its health & safety issues effectively and thereby improve productivity, reduce down time and demonstrate good compliance with all applicable legislation.
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| ACME has helped a number of large manufacturing and service organisations to develop suitable Integrated Management Systems including Quality, Environment, Occupational Health & Safety. Based on this expertise we would be well able to help your Hospital avail the benefits from a similar implementation too.
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