Uniform care is guided by all laws & regulations. It is further ensured that the care and treatment orders are legibly signed, named, timed and dated by the concerned doctors and nurses, the main idea being that the authors of these orders are identifiable by all and the chronology of care process is maintained.

1. Uniform Care Policy for
Hospitals
Dr.Anjalatchi Muthukumaran
Vice principal
Era college of nursing

2. Introduction
 Healthcare organizations treats patients with
different background (such as religion, economic
class, literacy level, race, language etc.) and in
different settings (such as general ward, sharing
room, single room and deluxe room). They are
expected to not to discriminate between their
patients and provide them a uniform medical
care per their clinical requirement. To ensure this,
hospitals must have a policy that specifies what
constitutes uniform care and what practices must
be followed to ensure that patients are not
discriminated on the basis of their background or
category of their accommodation. The essential
part of the policy is provision of uniform medical
care and does not applies to those services and
facilities that are non-clinical in nature.

3. Following elements of care shall be
implemented to ensure uniform care
to all patient

1. Standard treatment protocol – Hospitals
must develop/adopt treatment protocols or
treatment guidelines for various diagnosis or
clinical conditions and must use the same as
a standard for providing care to all patients
irrespective of his/her background or the
category of accommodation. This will prevent
any discrimination between patients receiving
clinical care for similar health problems.

4. 2. Life saving measures
 – Life-saving clinical intervention
(such as CPR, use of life saving
drugs, emergency intubation,
emergency oxygen support,
emergency ventilator support etc.)
whenever required by any patient shall
be provided irrespective of whether or
not patient pays or can pays for it.

5. 3. Emergency care –
 Emergency care services shall be
available to all patients who need
emergency care. No patient shall be
denied to access emergency care for
any reason. Each patient arriving at
the hospital’s emergency shall be
triaged to determine the level of
emergency and shall be prioritized
accordingly. The emergency treatment
shall be provided as per the
emergency management protocols.

6. 4. Clinical referral
services –
 Whenever required a referral advice
must be sought for a patient. The
referral advice must be honoured by
the doctor to whom the case is being
referred to.

7. 5. Informed Consent –
 Informed consent is an essential
part of decision making in clinical care
and one of the essential patient right.
Informed consent, wherever required,
must be taken from patients in a
uniform manner as per Informed
consent policy and procedure of the
hospital.

8. 6. Infection prevention
measures –
Infection prevention practices (such
as standard precaution, isolation
precaution, use of personal protective
equipment etc.) shall be uniformly
followed for all patient irrespective of
setting in which he/she is being
treated. Aseptic techniques and
infection control practices shall be
followed as per hospital’s infection
control manual.

9. 7. Patient safety measures –
 Each patient must be uniformly
prevented against any mishap,
accidents or medical errors by
following patient safety protocols and
practices. These include, medication
safety, surgical safety, safety of
vulnerable patient, blood transfusion
safety and safety during various
clinical procedures

10. 8. Intensive Care services –
 Intensive care services shall be
provided to patient only on the basis of
patient’s criticality and need of
intensive care. Admission and
discharge from intensive care unit
shall be on the basis of defined
admission and discharge criteria and
same shall be applied for all patient

11. 9. Rational use of blood and
blood products –
 Blood and blood products shall be
rationally used on the basis of clinical
requirement and not on the basis of
patient’s capability to pay. Hospital’s
policy on rational use of blood and
blood products must be used in case
of all patients who may require blood.

12. 10. Organ Transplant –
 Organ shall be made available to a
recipient patient in accordance to
Transplant of Human Organ act and
hospital’s policy on organ donation.
Organ shall not be provided on
commercial or any other basis except
what has been described in law.

13. Compliance policy
 It shall be mandatory for all care providers to
provide uniform care to patients with similar
health conditions. Hospitals must have
following systems in place to ensure
compliance to this policy
1. Medical Audit – Medical audit must be
conducted on a random basis to measure the
compliance to standard treatment protocols.
It should be used as a tool to ascertain that
patients with similar health problems are
being provided uniform care.

14. Continued
2. Informing patients about rights –
Patient shall be made aware of
their rights to avail uniform care

15. Continued
 3. Patient complaint and redress
mechanism – A system should be in
place for patient to register complaint
if they feel that they have been
discriminated. A redress mechanism
must also be in place to process all
such complaints