Vietnam - Hospitals told service quality must improve

The Hanoitimes - Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien has urged hospitals to improve healthcare service quality to integrate with the international community.

Tien spoke yesterday at the first National Forum o­n Hospital Quality oganised by the Ministry of Health with support from the European Commission.

"Improvement of health service quality is the urgent task of all hospitals and also an expectation of all," Tien said.

More space, rooms

"Patients need more waiting space and rooms for examinations and treatment along with the simplification of administration procedures," Tien said.

She asked hospitals to comprehensively reform examination and treatment services to improve quality and minimise waiting times.

The ministry's Medical Services Administration director Luong Ngoc Khue said the improvement of service quality would focus o­n improving medical staff morale and attitude towards patients at hospitals and strengthening activities and services in examination units.

"A total of 1,050 beds were added to the country's health care system in 2012 in hospitals of Bach Mai, Cancer, Endocrine in Hanoi and Quang Nam General Hospital in Quang Nam Province," said Khue.

A survey of 34 hospitals in 48 provinces and cities nation-wide showed remarkable improvements to examination and treatment quality. Around 30% of hospitals had improved their administration procedures and expanded waiting and examination and treatment spaces for patients.

The ministry will introduce a process to measure patient satisfaction and introduce a national action plan o­n hospital management till 2020.

At the forum, health experts and hospital managers focused discussions o­n measures to improve the quality of healthcare after the increase in hospital fees; raising awareness among leaders, managers and professionals of the need to improve the quality of healthcare.

They also shared experiences and best practices in management of care quality at both domestic and international hospitals.

The event was part of the technical co-operation provided by the health sector capacity support project, funded by the European Commission and implemented in Vietnam to strengthen the institutional capacity for good governance of the sector and for improved health service delivery.

This week, Tien also urged the health sector to improve the health management information system as one of the measures needed to better serve the planning and monitoring of healthcare activities at a two-day workshop, also under the capacity support project.