Major changes needed to boost health care

File photo: Luke MacGregor

File photo: Luke MacGregor

Published May 28, 2015

Share

Pretoria - Drastic changes need to be implemented by various stakeholders to heal the ailing health care sector.

Co-ordinated efforts and team work are necessary if changes were to be seen, according to health sector heavyweights who discussed challenges and possible solutions in Joburg on Wednesday.

“We are all on trial over the value we offer to our clients,” Discovery Health chief executive Jonathan Bloomberg said.

To debate solutions to existing problems, Discovery Health brought together representatives from private health practitioners, hospital personnel, officials from the public sector and the pharmaceutical industry to a round-table discussion.

“The private and public sectors share a lot of common problems,” he said.

The round-table had to discuss prevailing global trends to come up with solutions.

Bringing down the “silos” within which doctors operated would be a major breakthrough, chairman of the independent physicians accommodation Dr Morgan Cherry said.

Doctors worked in isolation and did not share information, costs or training, he said. “We need a structural reform to replace the existing dysfunctional system, to stop a duplication of efforts”.

The provision of quality health had to be a major focus area, one in which the patient was at the centre of health care.

Dr Christopher Archer, who heads the country’s private practitioners’ forum, said: “The private sector is a system of excellence, and it needs to be incorporated into the entire country’s health system.”

The disparities between public and private health were discussed, the agreement between stakeholders being that it had to be breached.

Participants agreed that the provision of quality health care lay in the optimal use of technology.

“The future lies in technology, we need a system of information sharing across the whole health industry,” Archer said.

Dr Ryan Bosch, Discovery Health deputy chief executive, said there was need for such a system, one on which a patient’s entire medical history was available. It was also agreed that medical professionals had to provide quality and not quantity, and they had to understand that it was no longer about them, but about the patient they treated.

Adding another dimension to the discussion, Dr Carol Marshal said lack of accountability and skills was to blame for poor service provision. She is director of the national health office of standards compliance. “We need to shift incentives and consequences so it becomes uncomfortable not to do your job.”

[email protected]

@ntsandvose

Pretoria News

Related Topics: