Peer review gaining acceptance in Ghana’s health sector – Director
Peer Reviews of Ghana Health Service (GHS) facilities are gaining acceptance as the major evaluative instrument that could raise the quality of health service delivery across the country.
Dr Joseph Nuertey, Volta Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said this in Ho on Thursday during the peer-review of the Ho Municipal Hospital.
He said scheme to peer review all health institutions in the country and to mention the names of the good ones was in the offing.
Dr Nuertey said the GHS would ensure supervision at the grassroots to “make sure things were done right”.
He said peer-reviews were not aimed at searching for scapegoats but essentially, to operational reviews to improve on performances.
Dr Nuertey observed that the GHS in the Volta region had assumed leadership role in peer reviewing, as it now served as resource base on the issue for some other regions.
He said evidence of the fallouts of peer-review in the Volta Region was the growing ingenuity of health facilities to improve infrastructure on their own.
Peer review is the evaluation of performance of an organization by other people in the same field.
The Ho Municipal Hospital review was under the aegis of Mr Robert Adatsi, Deputy Director, Clinical Care, Volta Regional Directorate of the GHS.
The review team was made up of colleague health professional from 11 other hospitals, in the region, breaking into seven groups to tackle various areas of operation of the 150-bed Ho Municipal Hospital.
The areas are Quality Assurance, Environment, Client Care, Management Practices, Infection Prevention, Clinical Practices and Occupational Health.
Total score was 82.4 percent against 79 percent for 2011.
Gray areas were records (folder) tracing of patients, which Mr Adatsi said had recurred in almost all health facilities across the region and needed to be tackled.
Under client care, the reviewing team recommended that records of written complaints of clients should be kept.
The team on Environment reported of leaking roofs, fungal growth, peeling paints and defective water closet systems.
The Ho Municipal Hospital, which was built between 1925 and 1927 is not physically comparable to any such facility in the country, and centres for about 12 services provided, hardly linked architecturally.
Records indicate that the facility served as the referral hospital in the Volta Region until 1999, when the current Regional Hospital was put up.
Fortunes of the hospital thereon took a nose-dive, as it lost its client base by more than half by mid 2000s, suffered high staff attrition and general infrastructure state, tumbled.
A new management team under Dr Kofi Gafatsi Normanyo, the current Medical Superintendent, used what he called “intricate management policies” to revamp the facility.
The services rendered currently include community psychiatry, TB and Diabetes clinics, and surgery, family-planning, maternal and pediatric services.
It also has running laboratory, ultra sound, x-ray, pharmacy and HIV and AIDS testing and counseling services.
Dr Normanyo told the Ghana News Agency that in the coming months an emergency medical reception centre would be put up and the Out-Patients Department (OPD), would be refurbished.
He said while the hospital management scrambled to fix the infrastructural problems of the facility, the onus for tackling that area rested directly on government.
Source: GNA