70th Annual Convocation (2008-2010 Batch)

70th Convocation of the Institute will be held on Monday, May 10, 2010 at the TISS Convention centre. 
Dr. Purnima Mane, Deputy Executive Director (Programme), United Nations Population Fund has been invited as the honorary chief guest for the occasion.

Best wishes and heartiest congratulations to SHSS 2008-2010 batch from SHSS 2009-2011.

BRAINSTORMING: Feasibilty of International Health Financing Models in the Indian Context

Dr Arun Jitendra
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In first place why do we have to look at international financing models, it would rather be good if we are able to think something out of the box and yet rational which suits our present needs. Considering the fact even the pattern of health education is based on international curriculum its high time we start looking inside our system rather than imposing something which has been tried somewhere else . Even NRHM can be considered such an initiative which i dont think has been borrowed from anywhere.

Dr Khyati Tiwari
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Guys
What i think is, considering international models is not a bad option, all we need to take care of is that it is appropriately defined according to the needs and circumstances. The most important aspect being sustainability. For example, micro financing is something which was implemented in extremely backward African countries and was thoroughly successful. You always have a turn to experiment something new, all u need is the guts to justify it, according to circumstances and surroundings.. bits and pieces must fall in place and then the wheel rolls on...

Astha Gupta
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In my view, in the current global scenario of interlinked economies and globalization having entirely indigenous health financing models is not possible. To add on there are constraints from donor agencies which influence the health financing model being implemented. On the contrary a blind imitation of the international models without assessing the needs and situation of our set up is also not a feasible option. Instead we need a balanced approach wherein the international models are taken up but remodeled as per our needs after a through needs assessment and then implemented with the scope of revaluation being in place.

BRAINSTORMING - Accreditation of Public Hospitals: Possibilities and Implications ??

Dr Deepthi Alle
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Accreditation of public hopitals, there are two basic things to be discussed
1) What are the standards that are to be reached?
2) What is that we are expecting out of it?

If what we are trying to achieve is public welfare, we can achieve that if our governments put in little more interest into public health setups, which starts with providing basic amenities. Well equipped and maintained PHCs alone can work wonders, not even to speak of teaching hospitals.And for governments to be serious about anything, it has to be an election issue, so if our population are informed about, and they become aware of their rights; may be things will take a different turn. So, what i feel is, accreditation is of-course good, but it's not a must.
Rather an integrated approach grounded to basics shall be our immediate remedy, accreditation being a long term goal.

Dr Sandeep moolchandani mailed-by gmail.com

Hospital accreditation has been defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organisations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve”

-International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua)

If you ask me about accreditation of public hospitals, i will say that we should have a separate accreditation authority for public hospitals since the standards of quality for public hospitals can not be compared to private hospitals any day because of the big difference in case load and the administrative constraints. But some say accreditation and quality standards are not feasible in a public setup; but mates we should remember that quality is relative, it is an indicator of the efficiency of each unit of an organization and thus it should be monitored with help of suitable indicators both internally and externally where accreditation being an external solution. The data should also be disclosed for public scrutiny.

In short, better quality should be a persistent aim of any responsible organization; be it public or private.

Tiss scores on the accreditation front: DNA India

Once again TISS has come out with flying colours in the NAAC accreditation process this year, scorring 3.88 on a scale of 4 which is one of the highest in the league!!

Check out the article on DNA India website.

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_tiss-scores-on-the-accreditation-front_1344752