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A series of nationwide stakeholder engagements on Clinical and Compliance Audit Methodology have been climaxed in Accra on March 26, 2024.
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Quality Assurance Directorate brought together stakeholders for a review of the Clinical and Compliance Audit Methodology manual seeking to prescribe a well-guided way of doing things by the Authority.
The main objective of the manual is to intensify clinical audit compliance by the NHIA credentialed healthcare facilities across the country for the next five years.
As spearheaded by the Quality Assurance Directorate in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the essence is to promote and increase the uptake of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), through vigorous publicity campaigns in the local languages.
Key amongst the number of action plans approved by USAID is to revise the NHIA methodology and tools to meet international standards and best practices regarding clinical care.
Giving an overview of the meeting, the Deputy Director, Quality Assurance Directorate, Mr. William Omane-Adjekum indicated that, "Over the years NHIA has conducted clinical audit, where manuals have been reviewed, the only difference this time is subjecting it to international perspective.
A team of NHIA internal staff began a literature review of the various medical audits across the world and put together lots of documents with guidance from Joint Learning Network (JLN) , who have put together a guide to conduct medical audit."
"After they managed to come out with a draft internally which was submitted at a stakeholders consensus building last year, with lots of inputs made to meet international standards, this document was sent across our borders for further inputs and later taken through our internal processes for approval and here we are with the document for stakeholders further inputs."
He added, "So far they have been to the Northern belt, held in Tamale, Southern belt held in Kumasi, and now its climax in Accra.
Several inputs have come out from the various belts and that of Greater Accra will be added for further amendments.
The NHIA’s continuous collaboration with its stakeholders is aimed towards building a strong system full of resilience towards achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2030."
"To ensure this, we need systems and controls in place that will hold our stakeholders and providers accountable for their actions."A Senior Manager at the Quality Assurance Directorate, Eugene Segbefia took the participants through the document which included, key findings of the clinical audit, audited facilities, achievements, challenges at provider sites, and audit recommendations among others.
The document is expected to be amended through the various processes for it to be gazetted and finally uploaded on the NHIS official website to serve as a reference document for future references.In attendance were NHIA Directors, District managers, staff from Regional and District offices, and the head office and participants from the Ghana Health Service, Christian Health Association Ghana, and Private Healthcare Providers from the Greater Accra region.
Source: Hamdiya Amadu Yakubu
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