By Marvin Cato | HGP Nightly News|
VREED-EN-HOOP, WEST DEMERARA — As Guyana’s multi-billion-dollar healthcare sector is undergoing an expansive, tech-driven modernization, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) is increasingly stepping into the medical arena to standardize quality management practices.
In a strategic collaboration with the Regional Health Services of Region Three, the Bureau successfully executed a high-impact, one-day Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Training Workshop on Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Hosted in the packed Regional Democratic Council (RDC) Boardroom in Vreed-en-Hoop, the specialized quality improvement program equipped 45 frontline medical professionals with the tools needed to shift administrative approaches away from isolated firefighting toward sustainable, preventive problem-solving.
The multi-disciplinary cohort integrated doctors, senior nurses, laboratory technicians, administrative executives, and human resources personnel drawn from the region’s core diagnostic grids: the West Demerara Regional Hospital, the Leonora Diagnostic and Treatment Center, and the newly opened De Kinderen Regional Hospital.
For hospital administrators on the ground, the introduction of standardized diagnostic auditing tools marks a vital culture shift in clinical management.
“Having this training is going to play an incredibly important role in how we manage basic issues at an administrative level,” explained Dr. Dhanraj Ramnandan, Medical Superintendent of the De Kinderen Regional Hospital. “As a manager, too often the immediate reflex in healthcare is to place the blame entirely on individual personnel when an error occurs. This workshop shifts that perspective to reveal the systemic, underlying operational flaws that cause these issues, allowing us to build real solutions.”
The Clinical Risk Management Strategy
The workshop moved beyond theoretical quality standards to address immediate, everyday vulnerabilities in patient care and laboratory workflows:
- De-escalating Operational Deviations: Training focused on identifying “nonconformities”—such as clinical documentation lapses, equipment calibration delays, or diagnostic backlog bottlenecks.
- The Multi-Disciplinary Approach: Bringing medical staff and human resources into the same analytical framework ensures that corrective plans take into account both clinical realities and staffing constraints.
- Corporate Portability: Root Cause Analysis is heavily promoted by the GNBS as an essential, certifiable risk-management module available to both public corporations and expanding private sector companies across Guyana.
[ GNBS STRUCTURAL PROBLEM-SOLVING CYCLE ]
│
┌──────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼
[ Identify Nonconformity ] [ Trace Root Cause ]
- Isolate specific systemic error - Bypass surface-level human blame
- Audit laboratory or ward logs - Map structural workflow lapses
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
▼
[ Execute Corrective Action ]
- Mandate standardized adjustments
- Prevent incident re-occurrence
The intensive session was facilitated by GNBS Technical Officer II, Breana Chase Wilson, who guided the practitioners through rigorous logical mapping techniques designed to isolate hidden operational hazards before they impact patient outcomes.
“Root Cause Analysis is a highly structured problem-solving approach tailored to unearthing the underlying factors that disrupt institutional productivity,” Chase Wilson emphasized during the presentation. “In the healthcare sector specifically, isolating the ‘why’ behind an adverse event is the single most effective strategy for engineering safer clinical environments and elevating the standard of service delivery.”
The training concludes a wider push by the GNBS Corporate Communications division to build institutional capacity as new regional hospitals open their doors along the coastland. Regional Health Officer Dr. Fiaaz Hassan welcomed the intervention and urged the 45 participants to immediately implement the structural audit methods in their respective wards. By establishing proactive risk assessments as a daily standard, the regional authority aims to ensure that West Demerara’s expanding medical facilities match international clinical metrics.
