The National Agency for the Evaluation and Accreditation of Healthcare Facilities (ANAES) held a workshop last Wednesday at a hotel in Kita to inform and sensitize key stakeholders in community health in the Kita Region. The event was chaired by the Prefect of Kita, Abrham Kassogué, and attended by many other guests.

The meeting aims to obtain the full commitment of these stakeholders to the healthcare facility accreditation process. This activity allowed sharing key information with stakeholders and preparing the ground for ANAES accreditation teams.

Undoubtedly, an accredited healthcare facility reassures users that the care it provides meets the required quality standards. It also assures the state and other healthcare system stakeholders that it has the capacity to perform certain activities.

Accreditation is one of the main pillars of results-based management. This is why, for some time now, ANAES has been working to evaluate and accredit healthcare facilities.

This is done to enhance the technical capabilities and guide healthcare facilities toward inclusive and equitable quality care for the benefit of the population. In anticipation of healthcare facility accreditation activities, the Agency deemed it necessary to engage with various stakeholders in the healthcare system in the Kita Region on the process.

According to the representative of the Director-General of ANAES, Dr. Adama Koné, from 1998 to the present day, the number of Community Health Centers (cscom) has reached 1,470. This extensive network of healthcare facilities has ensured good health coverage in a short radius and has achieved better results in terms of key health indicators, but also in strengthening. For him, accreditation now seems to be the ultimate solution. He notes that his structure relies on tools from a reference framework designed and successfully tested by experts in the field and partners including Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance). Governance, personnel and qualification, suitable environment, protocols and procedures, quality, and safety are among the elements of this framework, he emphasizes.

For Abrham Kassogué, accreditation is an essential tool to improve the performance of the healthcare system, hence the important role of this workshop, especially to encourage decision-makers to adopt appropriate options to develop a culture of evaluation and, above all, accreditation within healthcare facilities.

“Thus, as part of the Strengthening of the Health System (RSS), the government has pursued a health policy with the main strategic foundation being the monitoring, evaluation, and strengthening of the health system to enable various health action programs to achieve their objectives.

To achieve this, there is a need for the involvement of the quality approach within healthcare facilities, the culmination of which is accreditation,” said the prefect. He invited stakeholders to engage in the accreditation process, which is a political will expressed by the authorities and advocated in the Ten-Year Health and Social Development Plan (2014-2023). Also in various Health and Social Development Programs (Prodess), which are five-year phases of this plan. He urged everyone to do everything possible to help stakeholders better understand the importance of accreditation.

Jigiya Mohamed Fabrice
Amap-Kita
Reporting for the “L’Essor” newspaper