Quality Assurance - The Key to Improving Health Care

ABSTRACT

Quality Assurance activities were introduced to the health care system in Uganda many years ago. It started in Uganda as a project in the Ministry of Health but now it is a whole department headed by a Commissioner. The concept of quality of health care has been a major concern of the Minsitry of Health. At Mulago Hospital there is also commitment to provide quality health care. However; the provision of quality health care is a big challenge due to the constraints of available resources. In such environment of limited resources methods are available to ensure that there is quality of health care. This is achieved by adhering to the principles of quality assurance and regularly monitoring; measuring and improving the quality of health care by collecting and analyzing a core set of performance indicators. The activities and the principles of quality assurance provide the groundwork for performance improvement. This paper discusses what quality assurance is; the principles; its activities and how incharges of departments; units; firms or wards and begin to reflect on how to introduce quality assurance activities