By Vanessa Obioha
Leading healthcare facility, Paelon Memorial Hospital, has been awarded a SafeCare level 5 certificate by PharmAccess for its quality improvement measures. It is the second time the hospital is receiving such honour from the prestigious group.
SafeCare standards are accredited by the International Society for Quality in Health Care External Evaluation Association (IEEA).
It is an arm of PharmAccess group that focuses on healthcare quality improvement and accreditation/certification of healthcare.
The initiative’s standards for certification are divided into 13 different service elements, ranging from medical to the non-medical aspect of care.
Under the platform, healthcare providers are able to implement best practices using the different service elements, measure performance against the standard and assign a quality consultant to the healthcare facility to ease the quality improvement process.
Paelon prides itself as the first hospital in Nigeria to score a two-star in the baseline assessment when it initiated the SafeCare standard in November 2014.
In October 2016, the hospital re-assessed and stepped up to level 5 which is the highest level in SafeCare. By 2018, Paelon relocated to a bigger facility with more staff and again, applied for SafeCare re-assessment. The hospital formed a Quality Improvement team in 2019 and started the SafeCare standard implementation process in March 2019.
The Country Director, PharmAccess Nigeria, Njide Ndili, acknowledged the hospital’s continuous quality improvement process at the certificate presentation.
“Paelon Memorial was one of the very first facilities to enrol on the SafeCare consultancy service. They were the first facility to achieve a level 2 certificate at baseline assessment, and also the first to achieve a SafeCare level 5 in Africa.”
“SafeCare helps us to deliver on our promise of getting it right the first time, every time,” concluded Managing Director of Paelon, Dr Ngozi Onyia.
