Why we need standardization of treatment protocols?

• Protocol based care enables doctors  to put evidence into practice by addressing the key questions of what should be done, when, where and by whom at each level –primary, secondary and territory . Protocols aid the clinician in giving the best evidence-based treatment plans. 
• It provides a framework for working in multi-disciplinary teams.  This standardization of practice reduces variation in the treatment of patients and improves the quality of care. 
•  Protocols usually include decision support systems to help doctors, make decisions about appropriate care for specific clinical circumstances .ex: poisononing, snake bite, head injury, burns and various emergency situations where rapid clinical action is necessary.

• Protocol based care optimises patient flow by examining what should be done, when and by whom, thereby reducing delays for patients.

Few of our friends express their doubts & dislike as ---

1. These protocols are just like cookbook, formulaic medicine that is unnecessary and intrusive.

2. Medicine is science as well as an art. What about the clinician’s freedom?

3. These guidelines will be misused by quacks.

4. Intrusion of federal govt. in the concurrent matters of state govts.

Supporting statements in favor of protocols:

A. Protocol based care can help reduce unnecessary variations in treatment and outcomes, but they shouldn’t constrain clinical freedom. Variations between planned and actual care may still occur as clinical judgments vary, to meet the needs of patients. These variations should be noted so that there is a record of what happens in practice.

B. We can follow these basic protocols ( like a recipy) to get started and adjust them with nuance and art.  The “Art of Medicine” (experience, knowledge, empathy, spirituality) can then be added to make the protocols “state of the art”.

C. We shall have freedom to develop local protocols in response to the publication of national standards with the help of Published evidence of good medical practice,

Other organisations’ experiences and protocols.

D. Quacks already have been in thick of doing criminal intrusion in the Indian primary health care. Its illegal on their part, Weather they follow the protocols or not. The govt. and IMA should be determined enough to eradicate the quackery.

E. union govt’s protocols may or may not be followed by state govts. Or the states independently devise their own protocols. Ex: tamilnadu,Orissa,etc..

The choice is with respective state govts to adopt national protocols or not.

One should Remember, that the basic standard treatment protocols are just like navigating maps helpful to doctors in stormy legal tides, which are rampant nowadays.