Kwazulu-Natal Province, Republic of South Africa
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
QU ALITY ASSURANCE PROJECT O P E R A T I O N S R E S E A R C H R E S U L T S The Impact of Accreditation on the Quality of Hospital Care: KwaZulu-Natal Province, Republic of South Africa October 2003 University Research Co., LLC ● 7200 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 600 ● Bethesda, MD 20814 ● USA ● www.qaproject.org The Quality Assurance Project (QAP) is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under Contract Number GPH-C-00-02-00004-00. The project serves developing countries eligible for USAID assistance, USAID Missions and Bureaus, and other agencies and nongovernmental organizations that cooperate with USAID. QAP offers technical assistance in the management of quality assurance and workforce development in healthcare, helping develop feasible, affordable approaches to comprehensive change in health service delivery. The project team includes prime contractor University Research Co., LLC (URC), Initiatives Inc., and Joint Commission Resources, Inc. The work described in this report was carried out by the Quality Assurance Project under USAID Contract Number HRN-C-00- 96-90013, managed by the Center for Human Services, URC’s nonprofit affiliate, in partnership with Joint Commission Resources, Inc. and Johns Hopkins University. The Impact of Accreditation on the Quality of Hospital Care: KwaZulu-Natal Province, Republic of South Africa October 2003 J. Warren Salmon, John Heavens, Carl Lombard, and Paula Tavrow Foreword by James R. Heiby Commentaries by Stuart Whittaker, Marie Muller, and Marilyn Keegan, and by Anne L. Rooney O P E R A T I O N S R E S E A R C H R E S U L T S The Impact of Accreditation on the Quality of Hospital Care: KwaZulu-Natal Province, Abstract Republic of South Africa The number of countries implement ing accreditation programs in their healthcare systems has grown in the past decade, but accreditation’s impact has not been tested rigor• ously using a randomized control Table of Contents trial. The purpose of this study was to conduct such a trial in a devel FOREWORD By James R. Heiby ........................................................................... 1 oping country setting and to air its I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 3 implications. The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province of South Africa was II. BACKGROUND ............................................................................................... 3 chosen because it had just con ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................... 4 tracted with the Council for Health Services Accreditation of Southern III. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY ........................................................................... 4 Africa (COHSASA) to introduce hos IV. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ......................................................................... 5 pital accreditation into KZN public A. Sampling ..................................................................................................... 5 hospitals. Following discussions between COHSASA and the Joint B. Data Collected ............................................................................................ 5 Commission International (JCI), a 1. COHSASA Standards ............................................................................ 5 joint research team representing the 2. Indicators of Hospital Quality ................................................................ 6 Medical Research Council (MRC) of C. Data Management Procedures .................................................................. 7 South Africa and JCI, under the 1. COHSASA Data ..................................................................................... 7 sponsorship of the USAID Quality 2. Quality Indicator Data ........................................................................... 7 Assurance Project, was engaged to study the impact of the COHSASA D. Data Analysis .............................................................................................. 7 accreditation program on KZN E. Timeframe for Data Collection ................................................................... 7 hospitals. V. RESULTS ......................................................................................................... 9 The KZN province agreed that 20 A. Compliance with COHSASA Standards .................................................... 9 randomly selected public hospitals, B. Impact on Indicators of Quality ................................................................ 10 stratified by size, could be part of the study. Ten of these hospitals VI. DISCUSSION ................................................................................................... 15 entered the accreditation program A. COHSASA Standards ............................................................................... 15 in 1998; the other ten, which served B. Quality Indicators ..................................................................................... 15 as a control, entered about two VII. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 17 years later. The study prospectively measured the effects of the REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 18 COHSASA hospital accreditation APPENDIX ............................................................................................................ 19 program on various indicators of hospital care. The study used sur• COMMENTARIES .................................................................................................. 25 vey data from the COHSASA By Stuart Whittaker, Marie Muller, and Marilyn Keegan ............................... 25 accreditation program measuring By Anne L. Rooney ....................................................................................... 47 Continued on page iv Abstract Continued Acknowledgements The research team wishes to express its gratitude to the hospital structures and processes, along with following individuals and organizations for serving on the eight indicators of hospital quality of care col Research Project Steering Committee and for their support lected by an independent research team. The and important contributions to this research study: Professor indicators of hospital quality had been devel Stuart Whittaker, COHSASA, Chair; Professor Ronald Green- oped by consensus of an advisory commit Thompson, KZN Department of Health; Dr. Ivan McCusker, tee in South Africa. The indicators were: nurse COHSASA Board of Directors and Technology Advisory perceptions of quality, client satisfaction, cli Committee; Dr. Ken Yamashita, USAID/South Africa; Dr. Nico ent medication education, accessibility and Walters, Medical Research Council (MRC); and Ms. Anne completeness of medical records, quality of Rooney, Quality Assurance Project/Joint Commission peri-operative notes, hospital sanitation, and International. labeling of ward stocks. Indicators of mortal ity and morbidity were dropped because of We thank the following for the foreword and commentaries: difficulty in achieving comparability across the James R. Heiby, Chief Technical Officer for Quality Assurance hospitals. The investigators compared the and Workforce Development, USAID Bureau for Global Health, performance of the ten hospitals participat Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition. ing in the accreditation program (intervention Stuart Whittaker, Chief Executive Officer, Council for Health hospitals) with the ten not yet participating Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA), and (control hospitals). Honorary Associate Professor, Department of Community About two years after accreditation began, the Health, Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of study found that intervention hospitals signifi Natal, South Africa; cantly improved their average compliance Marie Muller, Professor of Nursing and Dean of the Faculty of with COHSASA accreditation standards from Education Nursing at Rand Afrikaans University, 38 percent to 76 percent, while no appre Johannesburg, South Africa; and ciable increase was observed in the control Marilyn Keegan, Communications Manager for COHSASA. hospitals (from 37 percent to 38 percent). This improvement of the intervention hospitals rela Anne L. Rooney, RN, MS, MPH, Executive Director of Interna tive to the controls was statistically significant tional Services, Joint Commission International, Oakbrook and seems likely to have been due to the Terrace, IL USA. accreditation program. However, with the exception of nurse perceptions of clinical Recommended citation quality, the independent research team observed little or no effect of the intervention Salmon JW, Heavens J, Lombard C, and Tavrow P with on the eight quality indicators. Limitations of foreword by Heiby, JR, and commentaries by Whittaker S, the study design may have influenced these Muller M, Keegan M, and Rooney AL. 2003. The Impact of results. Several intervention hospitals were still Accreditation on the Quality of Hospital Care: KwaZulu-Natal trying to achieve accredited status at the time Province, Republic of South Africa. Operations Research of the second COHSASA survey, and in gen Results 2(17). Bethesda, MD: Published for the U.S. Agency eral the full impact of the program may take for International Development (USAID) by the Quality Assur• longer