Clinics fail to record patient info

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Monday April 26, 2010 00:00

 

Last Thursday, two out of five clinics admitted that they failed to record complete information about their patients. 

These clinics and two hospitals were engaged in a year-long project of assessing their services and finding ways of correcting it. The project started when the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Southern Africa Human Capacity Development Coalition (SAHCD), embarked on a pilot project named Quality Assurance Accreditation and Leadership Development Programme involving the Mahalapye and Scottish Livingstone Hospitals, Xhosa, Airstrip, Phuthadikobo, Extension 2, Bontleng clinic and Nkoyaphiri clinics.

Deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, Ontlametse Mokopakgosi, says that the purpose of the project is to introduce quality improvement and an accreditation process in the public health facilities in order to address and improve the current quality of health care services.

She said that quality health care shows the degree to which healthcare facilities meet the requirements of agreed standards that define the expectations of the service, patients and health care providers.

She said that they wanted to verify or determine whether products and services meet, exceed or fall bellow service or customer expectations. She also said that they wanted to assess the quality of their services, which mainly focus on clients, systems and processes, teamwork and the use of data. 

The Minister of Health, Reverend John Seakgosing, said that the main purpose of the project is to identify the organisation's strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, and to ultimately address the identified performance gaps.