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ACCESS Health International has teamed up with SafeCare, a standards based, digital quality improvement platform, to improve the quality of care in India. In this international partnership, AHI will help facilities implement the standards-based methodology developed by SafeCare that empowers healthcare providers to measure, monitor, and improve the quality of their services.

Working towards improving healthcare quality standards and strengthening health systems in India, ACCESS Health International constantly strives to bring innovative quality tools and programs in the Indian healthcare space. SafeCare, with experience in sub-Saharan Africa, is a globally renowned company which provides innovative healthcare standards, surveyor training, and grading systems for measuring the quality of care. PharmAccess Foundation’s SafeCare platform will further contribute to the efforts of ACCESS Health in building strong and high quality healthcare services in the county.

The SafeCare standards are accredited by the International Society for Quality in Health Care External Evaluation Association (IIEA). The PharmAccessFoundation manages and uses the SafeCare brand, standards, tools and methodologyfor quality improvement programs and assessment and certification of healthcare providers. The SafeCare package offers an IIEA accredited, standards based, step-by-step approach towards improving the quality of healthcare services. The improvements are formally recognized through certification. Within the partnership, a model will be developed and a phased approach towards licensing the SafeCare methodology to ACCESS Health International will be adopted.

The SafeCare standards offer a clear and objective view of a facility’s scale, scope, and quality of clinical services. They provide a detailed improvement plan to guide facilities on their quality improvement journey. Data can be used for benchmarking, performance monitoring, and informed decision making for both public and private healthcare facilities. The data collection and reporting system has been fully digitalized. This is done through mobile phones and central databases and reporting tools that are easily accessible for informed decision making by all stakeholders.

Why this partnership?

In the last decade, India has made big strides in providing better access to healthcare for its 1 billionplus citizens. However, the quality of that care remains a key challenge in reaching universal healthcoverage by 2030, a globally agreed goal of the United Nations.

According to a 2016 Lancet report, poor quality of care leads to almost twice as many deaths thaninsufficient access to healthcare, 1.6 million deaths compared to 838,000 respectively It is thuscrucial to address both these issues.

However, there is a lack of certification and accreditation bodies offering local solutions for emergingmarkets. How, for example, can a rural clinic in India meet the same requirements as a city hospital,given the differences in resources and training?

As a result of this weak regulatory framework, patients and payers of health care face uncertaintyregarding the availability and quality of service. In turn, this hampers health sector investments aspatients are not willing to prepay for healthcare through insurance.

More about the SafeCare Standards

The SafeCare standards provide an objective, holistic view of medical and non-medical service provision of hospitals and laboratories, transparent and achievable quality improvement goals and a staged motivating and monitoring system. The tools are online and mobile centric. Health professionals can benefit from an interactive, real-time quality management and monitoring platform that aids informed decision making and hence better health outcomes. It also standardizes the methodology of measurement across healthcare facilities. Patients know what quality of care to expect at a certain facility, funders have data to assess the medical, financial, and accountability risks when considering long-term investments and insurance companies can see which providers their customers use to give better value for money.

PharmAccess mobilizes public and private resources for the benefit of doctors and patients through health insurance, loans to doctors, clinical standards and quality improvements, private investments, and operational research.

In conclusion, at a policy level, data on quality and risks assist the government in its choices about how to best allocate its scarce resources. In this respect, ACCESS Health International and SafeCare can truly transform the quality landscape in India to create sustainable improvement and provide health for all.

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