Public Health Medicine Specialist in the College of Health Sciences, Dr Ozayr Mahomed, presented an address on the development of the Ideal Hospital Realisation and Maintenance Framework to the Family Medicine Department on the Howard College campus.
‘The Ideal Hospital Framework (IHF) is a critical strategy and intervention to facilitate improved health service delivery and strengthen health system effectiveness by capacitating hospitals to identify and address challenges,’ he said.
Mahomed, who is also a Lead Technical Advisor to the National Development of Health, said that the IHF will serve as a benchmark to monitor health system strengthening activities and improve service delivery as well as patient experiences. He added that the Framework would assist in achieving the goals of the National Development Plan and Department of Health imperatives. The IHF would also enable compliance with the Regulations on Norms and Standards Applicable to Different Categories of Health Establishments and successful implementation of the Ideal Clinic Realisation and Maintenance programme, and promote universal health access and cost-effective, high-quality service delivery.
Mahomed highlighted that while the framework was initially based on district hospitals, it was expanded to include all other categories of hospitals.
During the interactive session with the audience, a number of implementation challenges were highlighted as well as the Department of Health’s capacity to invest in hospitals to achieve Ideal Hospital status, given current economic constraints.
A number of potential research areas to inform policy and practice were identified. Information on the Ideal Hospital, including the manual, is available at https://www.idealhealthfacility.org.za
Those interested in conducting further research or with inputs on the IHF can contact Mahomed at mahomedo@ukzn.ac.za
Words and photograph: Nombuso Dlamini