South Africa

Africa

South AfricaNew COHSASA accreditations lead to safer health care

Keywords: Hospitals, Health services, Standards, Quality improvement

Following a meeting of the Technical Committee and Board of Directors of the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA) in March 2005, five hospitals and a clinic in South Africa have been accredited by the organisation.

The addition of public-sector facilities Mafube Hospital in Free State,Addington Hospital in Durban, the Klerksdorp-Tshepong Hospital Complex in the North West Province; private sector hospitals, Elim Hospital and the Hermanus MediClinic; and the Seawinds Clinic in Cape Town brings to 130 the number of hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centres and nursing agencies in South Africa to be accredited by COHSASA in its ten years of operation.

A further eight hospitals have been awarded certificates in terms of COHSASA’s Graded Accreditation Programme, which means that, although they have not achieved accreditation, they have made substantial progress towards meeting standards and, as such, are being recognised for this improvement.

COHSASA is a not-for-profit Section 21 company operating in the SADEC region(but principally in South Africa) and conferring accreditation on facilities that comply with standards that have been ratified by representative professional bodies. The Council itself has itself been accredited by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua).

“Quality medical care is much more than the ‘hotel’component of a hospital: it is about patient safety and creating an environment where properly trained doctors, nurses and health workers attend to patients in facilities in which correct systems are in place, using resources in the best possible manner for a better outcome,” says Professor Stuart Whittaker, CEO of COHSASA.

A total of 463 health care facilities have entered COHSASA’s programme. While many of them do not achieve full accreditation status, they have been awarded pre-accreditation awards in Entry and Intermediate categories.

Because many health facilities in South Africa operate in resource-constrained environments, COHSASA has pioneered several methods and strategies to assist the facilities achieve compliance with standards. One of these developments has been the creation of the Facilitated Accreditation programme, which includes an empowerment aspect that helps staff to bring about improvements and meet norms and standards through their own efforts.

According to Ms Kathy Wiebe-Randeree, Hospital Manager of the 875-bed Klerksdorp-Thsepong Complex in the North-West Province, the process of accreditation is an extremely positive one.

“The programme left the institution in a better place than when we started. It has brought a great deal of team-work to the organisation and assisted top management because middle-management was empowered to understand their roles, take responsibility and be accountable for their actions,”said Ms Wiebe-Randeree.

She said that planning and co-ordination of a quality improvement programme as comprehensive as COHSASA’s was quite a task – particularly with the hospital complex being in different locations and with a staff component of 1,600 people.

Dr Lotz, Hospital Manager of the Hermanus Medi-Clinic said the process highlighted the need for them to strengthen areas of health and safety for personnel.

“We are a small hospital in a small town and one forgets that security risks are present. This was a big learning curve for us,” he said. “The systems that are now in place will facilitate better management of the hospital,and I now have a set of tools at my disposal. It is also comforting to know that our hospital is up to scratch.”

Dr Lotz said the preparation was hard, and it took two or three months of solid work requiring buy-in from all levels of staff, but the effort was worthwhile in the end.

“The process sets out a system of policies and processes that govern best practice, with the end result that the quality of patient care is improved. We can now measure patient complaints against a measurable standard and quality control is in place,” he said. “Our challenge is now to keep it alive. We have done all the hard work in getting the systems into place and now need to make sure that systems are adhered to and followed by all working in the hospital.”

More information at: www.cohsasa.co.za/html/newsflashes/200503252.htm