Thursday, Sep 15, 2016

Abu Dhabi: The quality standards of various health care facilities in the emirate of Abu Dhabi are being recorded by a leading health care insurer, and could be published for the first time within the next three years, a top health insurance executive said in the capital.

“We have been measuring health providers’ quality standards for the past two years, and these allow us to compare provider performance. We are only waiting for the measurement system to be stable before we release this information to patients,” Dr Michael Bitzer, chief executive officer at The National Health Insurance Company — Daman, told Gulf News.

“Not only will this information help patients make informed choices between various facilities, but it will also act as an incentive for hospitals to better their performance and outcomes,” he added.

Dr Bitzer was speaking following a daylong conference on health care management, organised by Al Noor Hospitals Group and Mediclinic. At the event, health care and insurance executives met to discuss the challenges and trends in health care provision within the UAE.

Daman, which specialises in providing health insurance, is owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, in collaboration with Munich Re, a Germany-based reinsurance firm. It boasts three million members at present.

The insurer is collecting about 100 indicators to determine the quality of each health care provider, including complication rates, infection rate and readmission rates of patients following treatment. Eventually, these measures could be used by the insurer to create a scale of payment through which top-performing facilities would get higher payments compared to those with lower quality for the same treatment or service rendered.

A comprehensive system of linking payments to the quality of care provided is also in the works by the emirate’s health care sector regulator, the Health Authority Abu Dhabi (Haad). While no timeline has yet been set on its implementation, the Haad did announce in May a list of hospitals in the emirate that had provided the most timely care to patients, as well as those facilities that had achieved the highest patient satisfaction. These were measured under the Haad’s annual Abu Dhabi Quality Index (Jawda).

Dr Omar Najm, senior adviser at the Haad, said 102 indicators are currently being used as part of Jawda to measure quality, including those that rate patient outcomes and safety, timeliness of care, and patient satisfaction.

by Samihah Zaman Staff Reporter

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