Filenews 8 September 2023 - by Matilena Panayiou
The Health Insurance Organisation proceeded with the implementation of the quality criteria arising from the new way of compensating GHS hospitals, which, among other things, started recording the quality and safety indicators that have been defined.
Number of deaths, number of cases of infections and hospital-acquired germs, complications after surgeries, as well as availability of beds, are included, among others, in the list and, depending on its results, each hospital will receive additional units that will increase the amount of compensation for each medical operation.
As Monika Kyriakou, senior HIO officer, explained to "F", quality and safety indicators are part of the quality criteria that hospitals can take advantage of to increase their compensation. By the beginning of the week, 25 hospitals had registered (out of the 58 hospitals available in the GHS), however, the registration process continues and this number will probably increase.
"In these hospitals, the recording of specific data has begun, which is included in the 10 quality and safety indicators that have been defined. In the first phase, hospitals will be compensated for their participation in this criterion and in 2024 the compensation will begin to depend on the quality of their results." The HIO, he explained, chose to implement this transitional stage because "hospitals must have time to develop the necessary mechanisms to record this data, while we are already visiting hospitals and making relevant updates. In order to properly monitor these very important issues, our hospitals must also be able to give us correct data."
The specific indicators, he said, include:
– The number of cases of nosocomial MRSA infection.
– The number of clostridia cases.
– The percentage of pressure sores in patients.
– The percentage of occupied beds of the hospital. That is, if a hospital has 90% of its beds constantly occupied, some further research may be needed, since it is possible that the large volume of patients causes problems in the quality of the services provided. Or vice versa, if the percentage of occupied beds is too low.
– The percentage of surgical complications due to specific errors (determined based on international practice and protocols).
– The mortality rate every 30 days.
– The rate of cases associated with pneumonia per 30 days.
– The percentage of falls.
– The percentage of vaccinated professionals with the flu and Covid-19 vaccines.
– The rate of consumption of specific intravenous antibiotics.
If a hospital maintains these indicators at high levels, it will receive 5 additional points when calculating its compensation.
In addition to these indicators, Kyriacou said, "we also apply the indicator of correct completion of discharges. That is, a patient when leaving the hospital must have all the information he needs written on his discharge. What medication did he take, what was his diagnosis, what does he need to continue, what tests did he undergo? This is all data that the patient needs, but it must be present at discharge so that all doctors who monitor this patient can be informed."
Along with the qualitative criteria, the senior HIO officer concluded, "the organization also promotes the process of integrating a specific application into the system that guides the doctor in his effort to select the most appropriate radiodiagnostic examination for his patient. This application belongs to the European Society of Radiology, from which we obtained it and we are now in the preparation stage to be able to make it available to our doctors. Simply put, the doctor will enter his patient's data and this application will suggest the tests, in order of priority, which would be the most appropriate for the case and certainly all will be based on the guidelines of the European Society of Radiology. This system is not yet ready but we are trying to complete as soon as possible what needs to be done to make it available to GHS doctors. With the operation of this application we will also attack the abuses that currently seem to be observed in the system in terms of radiodiagnostic tests."
