Establishing Patient Safety Cells in Public Tertiary Care Hospitals in India: A Practical Implementation Framework

Patient safety is recognised as a global health priority, and structured institutional mechanisms are required to reduce avoidable harm in healthcare settings. Public tertiary care hospitals in India manage high patient volumes, complex clinical services and resource constraints, all of which increase the need for coordinated patient safety governance. This technical report proposes a practical implementation framework for establishing Patient Safety Cells in public tertiary care hospitals in India, covering rationale, governance composition, core functions, a phased implementation pathway, patient safety indicators, incident reporting, root cause analysis (RCA) and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) workflows, integration with the Indian health system priorities, barriers, sustainability and minimum documentation. The novelty of the proposed model lies in consolidating fragmented safety activities under a single multidisciplinary operational hub explicitly aligned with the Indian public tertiary care environment and with various accreditation requirements. The expected institutional impact includes more consistent incident reporting and learning, structured root cause analysis and failure mode and effects analysis, accountable corrective action closure and stronger linkage between hospital-level practice and global and national patient safety priorities. Prospective implementation and evaluation are required to assess feasibility, effectiveness and long-term sustainability in routine public hospital practice.