Quality improvements
Ensuring high quality medical care is a challenge to any health system. If clinical practice is to be effective, diagnosis and treatments should be evidence based, using clinical guidelines; treatment protocols should be cost effective. This in turn will depend on the provision of high quality drugs, which will require transparent systems for drug registration, quality standards, and regulated supply.
Health care staff should receive appropriate training, which should be accredited against agreed standards. All should be licensed by professional or governmental bodies, and all training should be ongoing - professional development. All aspects of health care delivery should be accredited and monitored (audited) against agreed standards, and clinicians should be answerable for their practice (clinical governance). All aspects of quality in health service delivery depend on effective management.
- Family planning services quality as a determinant of use of IUD in Egypt
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This article from BMC Health Services Research examines the relationship between the quality of family planning services and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) in Egypt. There is general agreement that the quality of family planning and reproductive health services positively affects contraceptive use and behaviour of patients; and that patients deserve to receive safe and high quality services with respect and dignity.
Recommended readings
- Accreditation and other external quality assessment systems for healthcare: review of experience and lessons learned
- ( D. Montagu / Department for International Development Health Systems Resource Centre , 2003)
- Accreditation schemes can help to improve standards at health facilities in developing countries, but only with careful implementation and substantial support. A review from DFID’s Health Systems Reso...
- Primary care groups: improving the quality of care through clinical governance
- ( S. Campbell; M. Roland; D. Wilkin / British Medical Journal , 2001)
- The UK government is attempting to monitor and improve the quality of health care through a challenging strategy of clinical governance, so how is this being adopted by primary care groups? This artic...
- How can hospital performance be measured and monitored?
- ( C Shaw / Health Evidence Network, WHO , 2003)
- Measurement is central to the concept of quality improvement; it provides a means to define what hospitals actually do, and to compare that with the original targets or expectations in order to identi...
Latest Additions
- Improving the quality of life and care for people living with leprosy in China
- ( J. P. Shen;M. Liu;M. Zhou / Leprosy Review , 2007)
- This article in Leprosy Review, reviews the current situation of leprosy colonies and hospitals in China. It is based on a national survey carried out in 2004. At this time China had over 600 leprosy ...
- Poor villages are not benefiting from improvements in the quality of health care in China
- ( J. S. Akin;W. H. Dow;P. M. Lance / Health Policy and Planning , 2005)
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This paper published in Health Policy and Planning, examines changes in several indicators of access to health care across communities in during the period of 1989 to 19...
