By ERIC JUMA
The Siaya County Government, in partnership with the Lwala Community Alliance, has rolled out a quality assurance programme aimed at improving the quality of care across all levels of healthcare facilities in the county.
The programme, known as the electronic Kenya Quality Model for Health (e-KQMH), targets 172 healthcare workers in Siaya County and seeks to address gaps that have continued to undermine the delivery of quality healthcare services.
Poor infrastructure in health facilities, inadequate medical supplies, demoralised healthcare workers and ineffective service delivery have been identified as some of the challenges affecting the provision of quality services and the implementation of universal healthcare.
To address these challenges, the county government has partnered with Lwala Community Alliance to implement the e-KQMH programme, which seeks to strengthen quality healthcare delivery at all levels of health facilities.
Siaya County Chief Nursing Officer Godfrey Odhiambo said the programme would bring quality improvement closer to communities and frontline healthcare workers across the county.
“Currently, we are training the County Health Management Team, Sub-County Health Management Teams and hospital management. We also have a plan to build the capacity of 172 healthcare workers,” Odhiambo said.
He said the training focuses on various aspects of quality healthcare, noting that quality of care refers to the extent to which health services provided to an individual lead to improved and desired health outcomes.
“To achieve quality services, we must narrow down to the dimensions of quality that address issues such as sustainability, effectiveness, efficiency and patient satisfaction, among others,” he said.
Odhiambo said the various dimensions of quality have been incorporated into the Kenya Quality Model for Health guidelines, which provide a framework for improving healthcare services.
“We expect our clients, who are the patients, to walk out of our health facilities happy and satisfied with the quality of healthcare services they have received,” he said.
Francis Muma, a government health specialist at the Division of Health Standards and Quality Assurance, said quality improvement should be a two-way process involving both healthcare providers and patients.
“You cannot purport to be offering quality services when you do not know the expectations of the clients,” Muma said.
He noted that healthcare providers and patients often have different perceptions of what constitutes quality care.
“Quality from the perspective of the provider is different from the client’s perspective. The provider may be guided by ethical issues within the practice, but the client is interested in how soon he or she gets better,” Muma said.
Muma challenged healthcare workers to understand the needs of their patients and provide them with adequate information on available treatment options.
He cited the need for healthcare workers to explain to patients why oral medication may be more appropriate in certain cases instead of automatically opting for injectable treatment.
He also urged the county Department of Health to introduce effective feedback mechanisms to assess patients’ experiences and satisfaction with services offered at health facilities.
“Clients need to be engaged to establish whether they are satisfied with the health services at the exit stage. They should be interviewed or given questionnaires to fill in order to establish their experience from the moment they entered the facility to when they exited,” he said.
Muma said healthcare facilities should also engage communities through structured dialogues to identify challenges affecting the delivery of services.
He said community members should be given an opportunity to raise concerns and provide information that can be used to assess the quality of healthcare services.
“In the community, the Health Department should organise community dialogues where everyone is given an opportunity to raise their concerns for data collection. Once this is done, the data should be analysed quantitatively,” Muma said.
He said the quality improvement team would then use the findings to identify appropriate interventions to address challenges affecting healthcare delivery at the community level.
“The quality improvement team will decide on the best interventions that would address the hiccups at the community level,” Muma said.
Lwala Community Alliance Programme Manager Phillip Omondi Otieno welcomed the e-KQMH programme, saying it would contribute to improved patient safety and strengthen healthcare systems in the county.
Omondi said the organisation had entered into an agreement with the Siaya County Department of Health in February to strengthen healthcare systems and ensure the provision of quality services in health facilities.
“We are happy that our frontline workers are undergoing training on e-KQMH, which is in line with our objective,” he said.
The programme is expected to strengthen quality improvement systems, enhance patient satisfaction and empower healthcare workers to identify and address gaps affecting service delivery in Siaya County.
