Development of Management and Quality System in RS Hospitals

Recognising the benefits of using clinical pathways in RS hospitals introduced with the project „Development of Procedures – Clinical Pathways for RS hospitals“ implemented by the Agency and financed by the RS Health Insurance Fund, the RS Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has decided on continuing to introduce this methodology in all RS hospitals through project „Development of Management and Quality System in RS Hospitals“. The Belgrade consulting company „Bonex inzenjering“ had been contracted to implement the Project and it has included the Agency as well. The Project is funded by the World Bank.

Component: „Development and Introduction of Clinical Pathways in RS Hospitals“

During the first phase of the Project in 2008, methodology of clinical pathways development was introduced in all RS hospitals; plans on designing clinical pathways were made and submitted to the Agency. During 2008, the Agency’s team gave technical support to hospitals on creating the pathways by commenting submitted drafts.

During 2009, work on development of the clinical pathways continued as planned by organising workshops in each of the hospitals. Instructions for use of clinical pathways were presented as well. Monitoring of all clinical pathways in all RS hospitals was conducted in 2009, followed by a report with clearly defined guidelines for further advancement.

In 2010 during visits to the hospitals on regular basis, preparations and training of coordinators to apply the clinical pathways in monitoring of quality indicators was performed. Coordinators were trained to work on PATH indicators base and to use the clinical pathways to fill the base and use it to monitor the quality indicators. Afterwards, analysis of clinical pathways application was done followed by changes in a list of mandatory clinical pathways which represents beginning of monitoring quality indicators by using a new software application.

Component: „Monitoring of Quality Indicators in RS Hospitals“

The Agency has in 2011 continued to give professional support to hospitals in order to improve health care quality through monitoring the quality indicators. Since January 1, 2011 the hospitals have started to enter data into the designed software application which is an online database that allows entry of parameters necessary to calculate the quality indicators defined by the proposal of the Rulebook on the quality indicators and ways of monitoring and evaluation of health care quality and safety. Besides entering necessary parameters, the application calculates the indicators and gives graphical representation of calculated values with possibility to do comparison of values from given number of RS hospitals.