HCAH introduces upskilling courses for nurses & physiotherapists

New Delhi: HCAH, India’s leading home healthcare solution provider, in association with Fortis Memorial Research Institute, has introduced a professional development course to help general nurses become ICU nurses. Furthermore, they have also introduced CPD UK accredited specialization courses for physiotherapists.

In the first-ever course conducted in association with FMRI, HCAH upskilled 8 nurses into ICU nurses and 58 are currently under training. On the graduation ceremony of the first batch of nurses,conducted on 26th March 2019, Dr Gaurav Thukral, COO of HCAH said, “At only 1.7 nurses available per thousand population (WHO recommendation is 2.5 nurses per 1000 population), India has a crippling shortage of nurses, despite being the highest producer of trained nurses in the world. We are short of 2.5 million nurses. Situation is complicated by the fact that we are also amongst the top 5 exporters of nurses. Hence, it is important that the current manpower is trained and specialized to handle critical care cases.”

“Critical care requires special skills and it takes around 2 to 3 years to a general nurse to acquire those skills in the normal hospital scenario. With our targeted course, we have successfully brought down the upskilling time to 6 months through a mix of classroom training, onsite hospital trainings and e-learnings through our E-Mitra mobile app,” Mr Thukral added.

Vivek Srivastava, Co-Founder and CEO of HCAH said, “HCAH has adapted people-centric approach from the first day of its inception. We are equally concerned about patients and resources. In a highly competitive world, upskilling is essential to earn respect and survive. We present internationally accredited upskilling opportunities to our resources, which helps them hone their skills and helps us deliver the best care to our patients. During the courses, exposure in multi-speciality hospital ensures that resources have the skills and confidence to deal with critical healthcare scenarios. HCAH is India’s first home healthcare company to introduce upskilling opportunities for nurses and physiotherapists. It not only helps our medical manpower but also helps us retain the best of the industry minds. When a company takes care of its resources, they reciprocate with best service delivery and contribute with the highest efficiency toward company growth.”

Dr Sandeep Dewan, Director and Head of Department, Critical Care at Fortis Memorial Research Institute said, “Nurses are the most essential part of the critical care. One may survive a bad doctor but it’s difficult to survive a bad nurse. Noticing correct symptoms at right time can be a difference between life and death and a person only observe things which their mind knows.”

Along with nurses, 6 general physiotherapists also graduated to being specialist physiotherapists in management of low back pain, painful knee conditions, stroke, and critical care by undertaking specialised courses accredited by CPD UK. 39 physiotherapists are currently undergoing training. Amongst many others, even celebrated Top Indian wrestler and thanked HCAH’s Physiotherapy Specialist – a physiotherapist specialising in knee pain management – and recommended HCAH. HCAH is dedicated on the concept of creating specialised physiotherapist for the specific ailments.

Dr Ritu Garg, Zonal Director, FMRI said, “Nurses and physiotherapists are the backbone of hospitals. Even in a home healthcare set up, patients and their families develop a lot of trust on their careers. Be it home or hospital, patient’s quick and comfortable recovery is the priority. With nurses and physiotherapists spending a significant amount of time looking after the patients, it is of high importance that they deliver high quality care to the patients. The initiative of upskilling of nurses and physiotherapists by HCAH and FMRI is landmark in ensuring quality care to the patients.”