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The organisation, management and reform of hospital services
The overall aim of hospital reform initiatives is to create changes to ensure that a hospital provides affordable, accessible and efficient health services.
Health Partners International has been involved in the organisation management and reform of hospital services as part of major initiatives in Africa, including South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. We support public and private health service providers to reform hospital services in a number of ways:
- Developing health policies and legislation
- Introducing hospital assessment systems and systems strengthening initiatives
- Introducing modern hospital management practices
- Introducing commercial accounting systems
- Strengthening human resource planning and administration
- Designing and implementing management information systems
- Introducing regular review, analysis and improved monitoring of patient care
- Improving management of hospital equipment
- Developing effective referral systems
- Supporting the design and introduction of sustainable funding mechanisms
- Decentralising management within hospitals to cost centres
- Introducing independent external financial and performance audits
- Strengthening pharmaceutical management
- Identifying and addressing financial and other barriers to accessing care
- Developing mechanisms that improve accountability and ensure communities have a voice in the planning and delivery of services.
Some of our projects
- Reducing child morbidity and strengthening health care systems - Malawi
- Support to hospital management reform - Ghana
- Management support to strengthening of Hung Yen Provincial Hospital - Vietnam
- Hospital reform programme - Tanzania
- Hospital strategy project - South Africa
Background information
In Africa, despite substantial portions of national health budgets being allocated to thousands of government hospitals, most have been delivering poor and ineffective services. Since the early 1990s, in response to this, a number of 'hospital reform' initiatives have been launched. Whilst there has been significant success in some countries others have had more mixed results.
A key lesson from this experience has been that substantive hospital reform depends on high level political commitment and a strategic process of implementation. The need for hospital reform has not diminished over time; in fact, it has grown even greater.