PeopleHosp Bangalore: Voices from the Conference

The conference on Human Resource Management in Healthcare, named PeopleHosp, was organized by AMEN on July 4^th at Ashraya International Hotel in Bangalore. The conference attracted HR professionals from hospitals from Bangalore and outside.

The conference opened with an interesting talk by Mr. Siddharth N, General Manager & Head HR for Cloudnine Hospitals, Bangalore. His topic covered a futuristic view on HR competencies required in healthcare. The presentation, made enjoyable with a healthy dose of cartoons, discussed some key challenges facing the industry, like training, retention, sourcing, lack of discipline among the new breed of employees, lack of English speaking skills among the prospective employees, professionalism, skill-levels, employability and ramping-up of operations.

He put forth questions on how to deal with a large employee-base who is required to deliver personalized care to the patients, how to design systems that ensure customer centricity at each employee level and how to ensure sensitivity among the staff on medico-legal aspects of their profession. In the end, he emphasized the role of HR in driving critical circuits in the organization, in being the advisor to the business head while managing the core responsibilities of the function, managing risk, creating change and making a difference to the enterprise. He signed off by proposing the ‘competency way of thinking’ for managing HR in healthcare.

Ms. Nagarathna A, Asst. Prof. of Law at National Law School – Bangalore, shared her insights on ‘Statutory and Legal issues related to HRM in hospitals. Dr. Navin Chugh, who heads Quality at Global Group of Hospitals – Bangalore, discussed the requirements of NABH quality standards applicable to HRM. He took up the discussion based on the latest 3^rd edition of NABH standards for hospital and provided suggestions to audience on implementing the standards and facing the audit. When asked whether doctors practicing alternative medicine (AYUSH) can work in an allopathic hospital through privileging, he cited MCI regulations and said that this practice is illegal and therefore will attractive non-conformance in an NABH Audit. He also shared the practice of daily quality rounds as a means to monitor process compliance in his hospital.

Ms. Reshma Lobo, Principal – Padmashree College of Hospital Administration Bangalore, gave a talk on ‘Manpower Requirement & Planning for hospitals’. The topic on training of hospital staff was taken up by Mr. Schreyas Nair, GM – Training and Development, at Fortis Hospital Bangalore. She explained the approach followed at Fortis hospital in ensuring that the staff is appropriately trained to work in the hospital. Her talk began with a discussion on finding out how the training fits into the agenda of the organization. This, she said, is achieved through an identity statement for the training department, which in their case covers aspects like anticipates requirements of the business, be a catalyst of change, contribute to performance excellence, have people focus and connect, raise the bar of excellence and enable the organization to fulfill its vision.

She explained that the training department plans its activities through a 4 step process, which involves training needs investigation, needs analysis, creation of training modules and creation of training calendar. One interesting insight she shared about training at Fortis hospital was the Nurses Leadership program. The program is undertaken for nurses who show commitment at their work and consistently excel among their team members. The nurses who undergo this program are selected to lead floor teams or even head smaller hospitals’ nursing teams. For their performance management, the balanced scorecard is used which even includes financial metrics. The metrics focuses on cost reduction through a reduced Average Length of Stay (ALOS). She highlighted the importance of nurses in implementing strict infection control processes, thereby reducing the overall risk to the patients and ensuring a lower ALOS.

Mr. Kiran Gautham, Dy. Director at Alliance University Bangalore spoke about strategies for effective selection, recruitment and employee retention. This was followed by a talk by Mr. Marian Jayson on ‘Performance Appraisals – Tools and Techniques’. His talk focused on managing performance in the organization and linking the same through a robust appraisal system where the superior performance is rewarded and a below-expectation performance attracts strong feedback and strict action. He also shared insights on ways and means for deciding KRAs (Key Result Areas) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of various staff levels.

The conference ended with Mr. Ganesh Selvaraj, VP – HR at Manipal Health Enterprises, sharing his views on ‘Motivating today’s hospital staff’. His presentation was centered on techniques used at Manipal for motivating its employees. The methods which were employed by the company included staff-management interaction, employee engagement exercise, appreciating contribution by senior-most employees of the company at important events etc.

The conference successfully touched upon the various aspects of Healthcare HRM with the views of various industry leaders. The audiences were thoroughly engaged by the speakers and the question-answer sessions saw good participation from them.

The success of PeopleHosp in Bangalore has raised the expectations from the conferences which are going to be part of this series at other cities of India. The next edition is going to happen in Mumbai on August 29th.