Source: web site RS MHSW
The RS Ministry of Health and Social Welfare organized on Tuesday May 28, 2012 a presentation of the project „Introduction of management and quality systems in health care institutions in the Republic of Srpska; strengthening of PHC centres’ capacities and establishment of certification process of PHC centres, accreditation process of laboratories and continuous improvement of health care primary level in public sector“. Besides representatives of the RS MHSW, representatives of the RS Health Insurance Fund and the RS Public Health Institute as well, mangers of all PHC centres in Republic of Srpska participated at the presentation.
As Gordan Jelic, head of the RS MHSW’s Project Cooperation Unit, said this project was a direct support to the Law on Health Care that binds all RS health care institutions to complete formal certification procedure.
„Certification of primary level health care institutions implies that the institutions must meet standards’ requirements related to safety in providing health care as well as continuously improve health care quality. This project is a sequel of the similar project that started three years ago in the hospital sector in RS that also had a goal to establish an adequate capacity to manage safety and quality systems in health care institutions“, said Jelic. He added that with this project Republic of Srpska would be a unique instance in South-East Europe that all its health care institutions in public sector introduced health care safety and quality systems.
"Through establishing very specific mechanisms, vertical and horizontal communication and cooperation, that is coordination between all levels of health care we should work on establishing more effective and more efficient system because we shall, through establishing very demanding standards, reach the goal to avoid duplication of some services currently present in the system that lead to certain inefficiency. Our goal is, for example, that through accreditation of laboratories we reach a situation that, by raising level of trust in lab analysis, we avoid duplications of lab analysis in PHC centres and hospitals, whereby we can directly contribute system savings“, emphasized Gordan Jelic.
The RS Public Health Institute’s director Slobodan Stanic said that a role of the Institute in this meeting was to share experiences of this institution since it had started this process five years ago and was awarded with the ISO 9001 Certificate and ISO 17 025 accreditation of three laboratories, lab for physic-chemical testing, lab for microbiology and lab for testing of radionuclide.
„That standard is very similar to the 15 189 standard which will be used for accreditation of clinical laboratories. One difference is in uniqueness of a sample and the other is that there is a medical doctor responsible for quality of performed service and who evaluates quality of service provided in lab sector“, said Stanic. He emphasized that one accredited and ISO certified institution would not make a change until all system has started the process, whereby the main goal would be to reach uniformity and standardization of services so they are performed the same way in small and large ambiences. Thereby, effectiveness and efficiency of the system would be achieved as well as savings, and patients’ welfare would be ensured.
Radomir Boskovic, technical manager of Belgrade „Boneks inzenjering“ that does technical realization of the project, said that the project was very complex and consisted of seven components.
„Besides certification of PHC centres, an important component is one related to linkage of primary with secondary health care level which should lead into shortening of patients’ paths through the health care system and better communication between PHC centres and hospitals. Other important component is a measurement of performed services’ quality throughout development of relevant indicator system that would show achieved quality level“, stated Boskovic. He added the project was further complicated because it would involve PHC centres of different development level, different staffing, employment and technical equipment, some of which were progressive and already accredited and some that did not started the processes.
„Having in mind all of this, we should, as our first project activity, do survey of current situation to get a detailed analysis of how to methodologically start realization of such complex project that includes absolutely all primary and secondary health care institutions. Additional benefit of this project is an education of some number of local consultants who shall, even after the project’s completion, independently continue developing the health care system”, said Boskovic. He added that implementation of the project would last three years.
During the presentation of the project, managers of PHC centres were given the “Accreditation Guide for PHC centres” that can be downloaded here.