Kintampo College of Health awarded in Paris
The College of Health and Well-Being-Kintampo (CoHK) has received the International Star for Leadership in Quality (ISLQ) award in the gold category for 2013.
The award was presented to the CoHK at the Gala Award Ceremony of the Leadership in Quality Convention held in Paris, France, last July.
It event was attended by diplomats, leaders in business, finance, the arts, academia, communication and the media.
Beatton Magazine, published by Imagen Arte Imarpress, a Spanish Communication organization, presented the award as part of its activities to highlight and promote exemplary companies upholding the values of the Quality Convention (QC) 100 Total Quality Management (TQM) Model.
The award comes with benefits for recipients, and a primary one “Is the renewal of quality commitment through the QC100 TQM associated with the award and the sharing of quality culture internally and externally both through publicizing the news and the transmission of the values of quality management”.
This implies that the institution would have to continue working hard to maintain its excellent achievement.
Speaking to journalists at Kintampo in the Brong-Ahafo Region on Tuesday, Dr Emmanuel Teye Adjase, Director of CoHK, said “along with other services, the ISLQ award serves to promote local, national and international leaders in recognition of their growth, innovation, technological development and leadership in quality and excellence’’.
He said Imagen Arte Imarpress has been celebrating quality through these conventions annually since 1986, by awarding businesses and organisations from all over the world in recognition of commitment to quality management, excellence and innovation.
Dr Adjase said the management, staff and students of the College had been humbled by the award because “the voting process is confidential, in that the exact source of nomination cannot be revealed”.
He said the individual or organisation, either local, national or international that nominated the College was not known.
Dr Adjase explained that “companies, institutions or organisations are selected and voted for as award winners on merit but not on a silver platter”.
He said the final decision made by the ISQL selection committee was based on the criteria of the principles of the QC100 TQM.
Dr Adjase mentioned customer satisfaction, leadership, communication strategies, continuing education and training, planning and decision-making, human resource, processes and production, benchmarking, financial outcome and business results as some of the principles.
“This means that the efforts we have been making as management team, staff and students to elevate the institution to its current level, is well-known by the international community,” he said.
Dr Adjase stated that “this international achievement serves as an inspiration to spur us on towards attaining university status in line with our vision of becoming a centre of excellence as health and well-being educational and training institution in Africa”.
The CoHK, previously known as Kintampo Rural Health Training School, started as a Ministry of Health training institution in 1969, to train middle -level health professionals to provide quality and comprehensive health care to the people, especially those living in the rural and under-served areas of the country.
Its establishment stemmed from the felt need for front line health personnel to augment the physician workforce that was grossly inadequate.
In response to these needs, the first batch of 16 students enrolled into the school in 1969 to be trained as health centre superintendants and it has in recent years improved and expanded in programme content, scope and student numbers.
Currently the institution runs 20 basic, post-basic/under-graduate programmes of study including Community Medicine, Dentistry and Health, Medical Laboratory Science, Health Information Management and Health Promotion, Community Nutrition, Applied Epidemiology, Community Mental Health and Clinical Psychiatry.
Source: GNA