The Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA) is the only internationally accredited quality improvement and accreditation body for healthcare facilities based in Africa. In the past  22 years over 600 facilities throughout the continent have entered the COHSASA programme to improve the quality and safety of the healthcare services provided to patients.

By making health systems more resilient, COHSASA assists a range of healthcare facilities in Southern Africa to meet and maintain quality standards. This range includes hospitals, clinics, general and family practitioners, rehabilitation centres, hospices and laundries. Standards are also being developed for individual services such as sedation units and home-based care. There is a strong focus on building capacity to help healthcare professionals measure themselves against the standards. The COHSASA approach teaches healthcare workers how to monitor improvements using quality improvement methods, internationally accredited standards and a web-based information system.

Strictly applied quality improvement methods can improve patient safety and the quality of care by identifying deficiencies, guiding interventions and monitoring progress. COHSASA's web-based information system identifies deficiencies and weaknesses in healthcare facilities and creates prioritised quality improvement plans to overcome them. The data generated helps authorities to provide cost-effective interventions.

COHSASA holds a fourth consecutive accreditation by the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua). The current ISQua accreditation award is valid until 2018. ISQua is the global authority responsible for ensuring that health accreditors are credible organisations themselves and that they meet standards. In addition, COHSASA's hospital standards (Edition 6.7), palliative care standards and its surveyor training programme are also currently accredited by ISQua.

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(ABOVE LEFT): Bert von Wielligh, MD for the Cure Day Clinics Holdings, outlines the plans his group has for involvement with COHSASA and growing Cure Day into a national footprint. Bert is well-versed in the subject of patient safety and quality improvement and assurance. He was the MD for the Curamed Group and served as Operational Director for Medclinic’s Tshwane Region. Bert’s experience includes involvement with the National Hospital Network (NHN) and the Hospital Association of South Africa (HASA).

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