(from left) Michiel de Wilde, CEO of PharmAccess Foundation, Paula Wilson, CEO of Joint Commission International and Stuart Whittaker, CEO of COHSASA with the signed Founding Document of the SafeCare Initiative.

A conference to launch the SafeCare Initiative and attended by delegates from more than 13 African countries and from the United States, Switzerland and the Netherlands was held at Cape Town’s International Convention Centre on March 9th and 10th.

COHSASA, together with Joint Commission International of the United States and the PharmAccess Foundation in the Netherlands, is part of this international initiative which spans three continents.  These organisations are combining their skills, experience, tools and expertise to assist healthcare facilities in resource-restricted improve service delivery.

Invited healthcare policy makers and key clinical personnel met at the two-day workshop to discuss this improvement programme for primary healthcare in resource-restricted countries.

COHSASA has moved

COHSASA has moved premises. We have not moved far – just one floor up in the same building, (Lonsdale Building) in Lonsdale Way, Pinelands. Our new Suite Numbers in the building are 13, 14, and 15; our telephone, fax numbers and postal address remain the same

Tel: +27 21 531 4225
Fax: +27 21 531 4243
PO Box 676
Howard Place
7450

Our new physical address is:
COHSASA
Office Suites No 13 -15
First Floor
Lonsdale Building
Lonsdale Way
PINELANDS
7405

Quality Improvement planning instrument

COHSASA’s IT department is hard at work to develop a quality action plan for facilities which makes it easy for clients to prioritise and attend to deficiencies. The instrument examines over 3000 criteria in a hospital and compiles a concise action plan that is prioritised by the most important, high-risk areas and critical criteria that need to be addressed for the facility to reach accreditation status. The format is user-friendly so that hospital staff can clearly see what needs to be addressed first. The instrument will be an ongoing log on what needs to be addressed as new quality improvement projects are monitored at regular intervals.

ISQua surveyed COHSASA in the first week of November 2010 for a third successive accreditation which was conferred in February 2011 and is valid until January 2015.A function was held on the last day of the survey to celebrate COHSASA’s move to new premises.  Pictured standing against the mural in the Oasis Room are (from left): Professor Stuart Whittaker, CEO of COHSASA, Dr Charles Bruneau from the Haute Autorité de Santé (National Health Authority) in France, Sam Kearns from Accreditation Canada and Dr Hugo Arce from the Instituto Universitario De Ciencias De La Salud (Institute of Health Sciences) in Argentina.

Guidelines for COHSASA standards almost ready

COHSASA surveyors and quality advisers, under the direction of Standards Developer, Lyn Rayment, have been burning the midnight oil to produce guidelines for COHSASA Hospital Standards. The guidelines will provide direction to healthcare workers who need clarity on how to meet requirements for reaching compliance with criteria and standards.

The guidelines have also been developed to ensure a consistent interpretation of the standards and criteria by surveyors because it had presented as an issue in the past. The guidelines have been written for each criterion and an assessment methodology has been included. Guidelines for Standards for Hospitals Edition 6.4.3 have been completed and those for Edition 6.6 are almost complete.

More bandwidth…

In order to improve our service to clients and staff we have recently upgraded our connectivity for CoQIS. The upgrade comes with a guaranteed dedicated connection as well as improved availability and bandwidth for both national and international traffic. What this means for our clients and staff is that they should see improved speed and connectivity when accessing CoQIS from outside of South Africa.

To help us monitor the effectiveness of this new solution we would appreciate any feedback or comments about negative or positive experiences using CoQIS when connecting from outside of the country.

Should you require any further information on COHSASA, its products, instruments and processes, kindly email Marilyn Keegan, the Communications Manager, at marilyn@cohsasa.co.za.

Champagne celebration marks the signing of a joint venture between COHSASA and PharmAccess Foundation of the Netherlands. Pictured at a meeting in Amsterdam in late 2010 are (from left): Mrs Lyn Rayment, Standards Development Coordinator for  COHSASA; Professor Tobias Rinke de Wit, Director Advocacy, Technology and Research of PharmAccess; Professor Stuart Whittaker, CEO of  COHSASA, Onno Schellekens, then the Managing Director of PharmAccess Foundation (a position now held by Michiel de Wilde); Paul vanOstenberg,Vice President of Accreditation and Standards for Joint Commission International and Dr Nicole Spieker, Senior Quality Manager of PharmAccess Foundation

Astride the SafeCare Initiative and in keeping with its goals, COHSASA and a not-for-profit foundation in the Netherlands, PharmAccess, have entered into a formal joint venture to improve patient care in all levels of healthcare facilities in disadvantaged settings.

The two healthcare improvement organizations have joined forces to streamline the implementation of safety and quality standards of care in facilities in resource-poor countries.

With the South African Government poised to phase in the National Health Insurance (NHI) over the next 14 years, providing health services of quality will be at a premium - as will be the number and capability of agencies that set standards and measure compliance with standards at healthcare facilities. Questions have been raised and debate has been fierce around the issue of quality when the new NHI becomes a fact and ensuring that facilities meet standards will be one way that the public has peace of mind regarding the developments towards equity that the Government envisages.

Equally taxing for the consultants has been a process that seeks to link standards together in a matrix so that compliance in one central area can be tested against non-compliance in other areas of a hospital. For example, the Management and Leadership standards cannot achieve high scores if there are major and serious deficiencies in other services and departments. Therefore the compliance score in the management component needs to reflect the compliance scores of identified linked standards and criteria in other sections of the organisation. The sample principle applies to other “generic” standards that cut across all departments, e.g. compliance in one area of infection control does not mean much unless there is a concomitant compliance in all other departments and areas of the hospital where standards relating to its proper functioning are in place. Similar matrices are being developed to consider other cross-cutting areas of functioning such as risk audits, record-keeping and continuity of care, among others.