Random quality audits to be conducted to improve healthcare delivery – Dr Anthony

As the Government continues to place strong emphasis on patient care, the Ministry of Health will introduce random quality audits across public healthcare institutions to strengthen service delivery and ensure higher standards of care.
This was revealed by Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony during the Starting Point podcast on Sunday.
“So, let’s say somebody’s diabetic and they go to a health centre; they’re getting care, but maybe their blood sugar is not controlled. And you need to move from maybe first-level medication to another level of medication, but that has not been happening for several months. Now, we have developed guidelines of how to care for patients. So, let’s say in diabetic care, we have these protocols, but maybe somebody at a health centre is not following the protocol. Therefore, there’s a mismatch between how they’re treating this patient and what should be the established protocol. So, our internal audit or quality audit, clinical audit – they would go out, pull random charts, check the charts, and see whether or not the patient has been receiving the care that they should be receiving,” he explained.
“And if there’s a gap, then they would point that out to the physician and the nurses and so forth. And they’ll give them a couple of months to get these things corrected. And if, in some cases, the committee believes that these persons need additional training, then they’ll recommend additional training,” he added.
Anthony was optimistic that this new initiative would result in improved patient care at public health facilities.
“We are very confident that this is going to make a difference. So, once you have people checking, I think doctors and nurses would have to make sure that they’re compliant with what these protocols are,” he expressed.
He added that “sometimes people train maybe 20 years ago; they’re not reading the new protocols, then you can have that gap in terms of treatment. And that’s what we want to prevent. So, you’ll start seeing a qualitative change in how our patients are being managed because everybody would be monitored.”
In another effort to improve service delivery in the sector, the Ministry of Health last year launched a Patient Care Assistant (PCA) Training Programme to train individuals to support nurses and other medical professionals. The comprehensive programme includes theoretical instruction and practical clinical training. It covers basic aspects like patient care, infection prevention, medical ethics, and emergency response.
Meanwhile, last year, President Dr Irfaan Ali had announced that all new hospitals will have customer service desks where patients can report poor service, with those complaints influencing staff evaluations, benefits, promotions, and disciplinary actions.