Pretoria - As today marks the World Quality Day, the North West Health Department will be holding a Quality Assurance Summit, which will look at delivering accident-free health care at health facilities.
Introduced in 1990 by the United Nations, World Quality Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of quality performance of professional responsibilities and tasks across nations and in organisations to strengthen the improvement of innovation, growth and sustainability.
The two-day summit, which kicks off today at the Embassy Hall in Mafikeng, will be held under the theme 'In Pursuit of Excellence', where provincial hospital managers, quality assurance officers at facilities and district managers will look at issues including dealing with staff's negative attitude through a complaints management system, infection prevention and control and cleanliness.
Department spokesperson Tebogo Lekgethwane said that moving towards accident-free health care delivery, the department has established the Patients Safety Programme Group, which looks at adverse events affecting patients with preventative measures.
The committee, which sits once a month, comprises managers from different disciplines within the department like obstetrics and gynaecology, surgery, forensic pathology, family medicine, anaesthesia, nursing, nursing education, emergency medical rescue services and legal services.
"The approach encourages institutions to report adverse events without fear of punitive measures and remedial measures are implemented that address systems failures.
"Health professionals of casualty departments are trained regularly on triage for efficient sorting and coding of patients based on the urgency of their medical conditions as they present to casualty to ensure appropriate medical attention," Lekgethwane explained.
