Liječnički vjesnik, Vol. 133 No. 7-8, 2011.
Original scientific paper
PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN HOSPITALS (PATH): FIRST EXPERIENCES IN CROATIA
Jasna Mesarić
Slavka Bogdan
Vesna Bosanac
Martin Božić
Dubravka Čvorišćec
Boris Grdinić
Sanja Krapinec
Ljiljana Kucljak-Šušak
Darko Labura
Mirjana Lončarić-Katušin
Višnja Mihalić-Mikuljan
Ivan Mihaljević
Anto Orešković
Radmir Rakun
Boris Ružić
Lea Sokolić
Neda Striber
Kata Šakić
Ivan Šklebar
Davor Štimac
Anita Vidović
Mirjana Vrkljan-Radošević
Dražen Zekanović
Ozren Polašek
Abstract
PATH (Performance Assessment Tool for Quality Improvement in Hospitals), a project of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe offers hospitals a comprehensive and standardized tool (a set of indicators) to evaluate their own performance and development of measures for quality improvement. PATH Program was launched in Croatia in 2008, and it was conducted in 2009 in hospitals that have voluntarily decided to be involved. Here we present the results of the first phase of pilot experience of establishing the program, based on data collected in 22 Croatian hospitals. Analysis of the first results indicated the existence of marked differences among the hospitals that have taken the example of the percentage of cesarean sections ranging from 1.1% to 21.4%. The mortality rate of myocardial infarction ranged from 1.9 to 21.4%, while the mortality of stroke ranged from 12.5 to 45.5%. The highest percentage of needle-stick injuries reported for physicians was 16.2% of entire hospital staff in one year, 6.1% for nurses and 4.6% for the supportive staff. The result suggests the existence of many problems and limitations in data collection at hospital level, limitations in their analysis and creates recommendations for quality improvements, which must be taken into account when hospitals are compared on the national or international level.
Keywords
Hospitals – standards; Quality assurance, health care – methods; Quality indicators, health care – statistics and numerical data; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
171837
URI
Publication date:
31.8.2011.
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