Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations (CAHO) and 3M India launch Awareness Compliance Excellence (ACE) Program

• ACE Program aims to improve competency of Central Sterile Supply Department (CSSD) in Indian hospitals
• Move comes amidst the 2nd wave of the pandemic to take concrete steps for prevention of infection  

Bangalore, 05th  July 2021: With the ongoing second wave of COVID-19 and the looming threat of the third wave, it has become imperative for any healthcare facility to attain zero infection. The Central Sterile Supply Department (CSSD) is one of the critical avenues that help healthcare facilities attain this goal. CSSD is an inhouse department within a hospital which is responsible for the supply of the clean and sterile instruments used within the hospital for various procedures. 

The Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations (CAHO), a non-profit organisation engaged with various healthcare facilities with a goal to continuously improve the quality and safety of healthcare services has launched the ACE Program as a quality improvement initiative in association with 3M India that serves as the Technical Guidance Partner in this initiative.

CAHO has decided to take up this challenge and to raise the competency of the CSSD Setups across hospitals in India.  he challenge is huge given to the fact that the team/technicians here have not undergone any structured training program designed around this department and thus making it difficult for them to address the gaps in protocol adherence. 

Mr. Rajiv Gupta, Country Business Leader – Healthcare Business group, 3M India, on the ACE launch said “3M is delighted to launch ACE program for the healthcare facilities. ACE is well defined quality improvement program and caters to CSSD process improvement in the healthcare facilities along with the CSSD teams’ learning requirements. The overall program’s objective is to make the CSSD team aware of the gaps in the current process & people’s knowledge of the process and bridge the gap. The timing of the launch is just right. Our country is in midst of 2nd wave of the pandemic and entire healthcare industry is highly sensitized and willing to take concrete steps towards preventing infections”.

ACE Program stands for Awareness-Compliance-Excellence and is a yearlong program which has multiple phases of engagement with the participant hospitals across the year. First is Awareness phase that aims at educating the CSSD team on the standards and support to them adopt best practices in accordance with the international sterilization guidelines. The second phase, Compliance is when CAHO Auditors visit the participant hospitals and perform audits to suggest the gaps that could be bridged to improve the efficiency of the CSSD Department. Final phase of Excellence is about recognizing the hospitals who have best adopted the standards as per recommendations and guidelines.  The hospitals will receive recognition directly from CAHO which will be announced at CAHO’s Annual Conference in 2022 (CAHOCON  2022).

Dr. Vijay Agarwal, President of CAHO said “Awareness Compliance and Excellence (ACE) program will be a game changer in promoting hospitals to adopt best practices in their CSSD 

department and in training the personnel. This in turn will play a huge role in enhancing patient safety by decreasing hospital acquired infections”. 

The program was launched on May 31st, 2021 at one of the CAHO’s Education Webinar for CSSD fraternity.  The launch was attended by 350+ participants that comprised of Hospital Administrators, CSSD Manager, CSSD Technicians, Infection Control Doctors from across India.  Dr. Lallu Joseph, Secretary General of CAHO introduced the program and gave a brief walk-through on the ACE program to the audience. 

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3M India Limited, an Indian Subsidiary of US based 3M Company, was established in 1988 and has its headquarters in Bengaluru with branch offices at Mumbai, Gurgaon, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. 3M leverages its global innovation expertise to develop homegrown solutions that addresses unique needs of diverse customers in India. 3M has invested in Innovation centers at Bengaluru and Gurgaon to boost local product development. Its manufacturing footprint is spread across Bengaluru, Pune and Ahmedabad. From products that improve manufacturing efficiency and impact improved healthcare delivery to safety solutions that help increase road visibility, everyday kitchen aids and car care products, today, 3M science is improving the lives of millions of Indians.