When we think of quality healthcare, many of us immediately envision a modern, state-of-the-art facility equipped with the latest medical technologies and staffed with highly trained professionals. While these aspects are undoubtedly important, the true essence of quality healthcare goes far beyond physical infrastructure.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), quality care is defined as the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes. To fully grasp quality in healthcare, we must look at it through multiple dimensions that address the entire patient experience.
Many times, people associate the concept of quality healthcare with impressive medical centers, overlooking critical factors such as accessibility, timeliness, and the actual costs involved in getting treatment, including patient transport. It’s important to ask: How many people can access these well-praised facilities when they need care? How quickly can they reach them, and at what total cost?
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) provides a comprehensive framework for understanding healthcare quality through six domains. These dimensions ensure a holistic approach to defining and delivering healthcare that truly meets the needs of patients and the system as a whole:
- Safe – Care should avoid causing harm or injury to patients. Treatments meant to heal should not inadvertently cause harm.
- Effective – Healthcare should be based on sound scientific knowledge, avoiding the overuse of unnecessary treatments and the underuse of needed services.
- Patient-Centered – The care provided should be respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values, ensuring that patient values guide clinical decisions.
- Timely – Care should minimize delays in receiving treatment. Long waiting times and harmful delays affect both patients and healthcare providers.
- Efficient – Healthcare should avoid wasting resources such as time, supplies, and energy. An efficient system ensures that resources are used optimally to provide the best possible care.
- Equitable – Quality care should be provided to all individuals, regardless of personal characteristics such as gender, race, socioeconomic status, or geographic location.
As a healthcare provider, I’ve encountered countless patients who, in their most vulnerable moments, face numerous obstacles just to access care. They travel long distances, endure traffic jams, and cumulatively pay exorbitant costs. By the time they arrive at their destination—often hailed as a “top-tier facility”—they may already be worse off, physically and emotionally. This illustrates the problem with equating quality healthcare solely with the grandeur of a facility.
Moving Beyond the Ivory Tower of Healthcare
In Kenya, quality care often seems isolated in its own siloed “ivory tower,” detached from the real-world challenges that patients face daily. These systems fail to account for the practical barriers patients encounter, from long distances to exorbitant costs of transport and delays caused by inefficiencies.
Platforms like ClinCol aim to address these challenges by creating ecosystems that connect patients with providers in a seamless, patient-centered manner. Through this approach, we are improving access to care and are redefining how quality healthcare can be achieved. Our goal is to build a system that not only provides the right treatment but also ensures that patients can access it at the right time and cost, leading to better outcomes.
In conclusion, quality in healthcare is not just about modern facilities or advanced technologies. It is about ensuring that care is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable. In a fragmented health system, we must rethink how we define quality, focusing on the entire patient journey and addressing the barriers that prevent access to care. ClinCol health is stepping in to close these gaps, offering a more holistic and connected approach to healthcare delivery.
References:
- World Health Organization. Quality of care. [Internet]. Available from: https://www.who.int/health-topics/quality-of-care
- Institute of Medicine (US). Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001.
