The Closing Conference „Health Care Quality and Accreditation in Southeast Europe” of the joint project of the Ministry of Health of Republic of Serbia and the European Union „Establishment of the Public Agency for Accreditation and Continuous of Quality Improvement of Health Care in Serbia” with presentation of the project’s results was held on March 18, 2011 at the Sava Centre in Belgrade.
The conference’s welcoming speech was given by Nevena Karanovic MD, state secretary of Serbian Ministry of Health and Yolanda San Jose, head of operations I, delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia. Main speakers at the conference were Snezana Manic MD, director of the Agency of Accreditation of Health Care Institutions of Serbia and Annette Katrava, team leader/health accreditation expert who jointly presented accomplishments of the Project and the Agency.
The conference was attended by representatives of Serbian primary health care centres, hospitals and other state and private health care institutions.
The international guests at the conference were accreditation experts from Slovenia (Biserka Simcic), Hungary (Akos Peter Mayer MD), the Republic of Srpska (Sinisa Stevic MD) and Italy (Andrea Gardini MD). The ASKVA director Sinisa Stevic presented the accreditation program in the Republic of Srpska through presentation “Health Care Quality and Accreditation in Republic of Srpska”.
The project’s main purpose was to support the initial activities in development of the Agency for Accreditation of the Health Care Institutions of Serbia (AZUS) so that appropriate institutional, organizational and management arrangements as well as system capacities are in place in order to perform accreditation program in Serbia in a competent and self-sustainable manner. The objectives of Accreditation are improvement of health care quality and patient safety and establishment of trust of health care service users in health care system.
The European Union has secured 1,5 million EUR from the IPA financial instrument for Serbia for the 22 months long project “Establishment of the Public Agency for Accreditation and Continuous Quality Improvement of Health Care in Serbia“.