27 September 2004
A move is afoot within the Ministry of Health to have all the Kingdom's health centres be International Standardi-sation Organisation (ISO) compliant within the next few years, an official said yesterday, writes Mandeep Singh.
Member of the task force set up to improve quality within the ministry Dr Farooq Al Zurba said clinical guidelines formulated for a more effective delivery of primary care in Bahrain have begun to be enforced, and this is a step in that direction as well.
He said the coveted ISO certification can be achieved but only after proper guidelines have been set and
formulated. "Not only that, these guidelines have to be enforced as well, and that's begun to happen in Bahrain from early this year."
Dr Al Zurba said, in Yemen for example, 14 of the 1,000 health centres had already achieved the coveted ISO certification. "We're also working towards that goal so that this happens in Bahrain as well." He said the task was actually much easier in Bahrain because of its size and easily manageable processes.
He said Bahrain, along with the five other Gulf countries and Yemen, early last year agreed in principle to set up reasonably acceptable health indicators to help improve the quality in its primary-care services. "We had a very close look at the model in Oman as part of the project and found they've managed top-class quality in their health-related services in a relatively short span."
Dr Al Zurba said another reason was that a World Health Organisation report four years ago cited Oman as the eighth in the world and first in the Gulf. Bahrain came 42nd in the world as far as quality in health care services was concerned.
He said the idea was not only to improve quality and work towards getting ISO certification, it was also necessary to get quality in a cost-effective manner. "While it's easy to get experts to work out details for any system and help it achieve quality, that costs a lot of money."
Dr Al Zurba said experts in quality control from ministries of health across the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council have already met earlier in Bahrain to discuss ways and means to incorporate exacting standards within ministries and work towards them achieving quality standards along the lines of ISO.
He said that the Bahrain part in the project was being handled in co-operation with the Central Statistics Bureau.
This is part of a project that will involve other ministries and result in improvement of services all over the country.
A move is afoot within the Ministry of Health to have all the Kingdom's health centres be International Standardi-sation Organisation (ISO) compliant within the next few years, an official said yesterday, writes Mandeep Singh.
Member of the task force set up to improve quality within the ministry Dr Farooq Al Zurba said clinical guidelines formulated for a more effective delivery of primary care in Bahrain have begun to be enforced, and this is a step in that direction as well.
He said the coveted ISO certification can be achieved but only after proper guidelines have been set and
formulated. "Not only that, these guidelines have to be enforced as well, and that's begun to happen in Bahrain from early this year."
Dr Al Zurba said, in Yemen for example, 14 of the 1,000 health centres had already achieved the coveted ISO certification. "We're also working towards that goal so that this happens in Bahrain as well." He said the task was actually much easier in Bahrain because of its size and easily manageable processes.
He said Bahrain, along with the five other Gulf countries and Yemen, early last year agreed in principle to set up reasonably acceptable health indicators to help improve the quality in its primary-care services. "We had a very close look at the model in Oman as part of the project and found they've managed top-class quality in their health-related services in a relatively short span."
Dr Al Zurba said another reason was that a World Health Organisation report four years ago cited Oman as the eighth in the world and first in the Gulf. Bahrain came 42nd in the world as far as quality in health care services was concerned.
He said the idea was not only to improve quality and work towards getting ISO certification, it was also necessary to get quality in a cost-effective manner. "While it's easy to get experts to work out details for any system and help it achieve quality, that costs a lot of money."
Dr Al Zurba said experts in quality control from ministries of health across the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council have already met earlier in Bahrain to discuss ways and means to incorporate exacting standards within ministries and work towards them achieving quality standards along the lines of ISO.
He said that the Bahrain part in the project was being handled in co-operation with the Central Statistics Bureau.
This is part of a project that will involve other ministries and result in improvement of services all over the country.
© Bahrain Tribune 2004
