International Credibility
- COHSASA is one of only 19 healthcare accrediting bodies in the world that holds a current IAP (International Accreditation Programme) award from the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) as a competent health accrediting body.
- This is its third successive accreditation from ISQua with the current award valid until 2015.
- ISQua has consistently accredited COHSASA's standards over the past decade and those currently accredited until 2014 are: Standards for Hospitals, Standards for Hospice and Palliative Care, Primary Health Care Standards and Emergency Medical Service Standards.
- Representative professional bodies such as the Society of Surgeons, the Society of Anesthesiologists, the Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa, the Infection Control Society of South Africa and many others have helped to develop and refine COHSASA's standards.
- International links and collaboration create a network-based legitimacy and expert partnerships.
Not for Profit
- COHSASA is a not-for-profit professional NGO – as opposed to an activist or advocacy organisation.
- It is an impartial, independent, non-political body.
- It has neither shareholders nor executive directors.
- It seeks to ensure that all patients have access to equitable, quality health care.
Track Record
- COHSASA has 16 years of experience in over 530 facilities in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Rwanda, Swaziland, Lesotho, Nigeria, Tanzania and the Middle East.
- The Council has a proven track record in both public and private healthcare facilities.
- It has developed quality improvement programmes for a variety of facilities including hospitals, clinics, hospices, sub-acute care and emergency services.
- In addition to accreditation programmes, COHSASA offers capacity building in quality improvement methodology, adverse event management, monitoring and reporting systems and research capacity to measure impact.
- To ensure that hospitals sustain their standards after being accredited, COHSASA provides a standards maintenance programme. This requires hospitals to undergo a mini-survey of key and high-risk areas once a year.
- COHSASA consistently monitors and evaluates its own internal performance to improve its service to clients
Information System
- COHSASA has developed the COHSASA Quality Information System (CoQIS), a web-based information system that enables licensed users, via a secure login, to view and query data and access objective information about levels of compliance with professional standards, including progress reports on healthcare facilities in the quality improvement programme.
- Ongoing access to current data enables management at all levels – national, provincial and hospital – to make informed decisions, to respond to triggers demanding immediate action and, in this way, to bring about continuous quality improvements through the ongoing monitoring of performance indicators.
- CoQIS includes abilities to navigate between surveys and to review data and to monitor the progress of individual and/or a selection of healthcare facilities in the programme.
- CoQIS generates queries that interrogate data – this provides an array of comprehensive details of the status quo of managerial, administrative and clinical systems within a single hospital, across a group of hospitals or all hospitals within a region.
- COHSASA's web-based system is a secure on-line data warehouse that has become a valuable repository of the chronological and historical progress of facilities in the client organisation as they move towards compliance with standards.
- Endemic weaknesses within a facility or across a region can be identified and acted upon.
- Client organisations are able to make informed decisions about the allocation of finances according to COHSASA's blueprint of identified deficiencies and prioritised improvements.
- Client organisations that use CoQIS as part of the self-evaluation QI programme are able to maintain their quality programme at the highest level over time, thus avoiding excessive workloads to prepare for external surveys.
Capacity Building, Training and Empowerment
- The programme is designed to empower staff through their own efforts
- COHSASA pays particular attention to improving institutional capacity – particularly management capacity.
- Managers trained how to manage their facilities better by making practical use of the information generated in the programme by CoQIS.
- Managers are given quality improvement projects to complete based on actual deficiencies identified within the hospitals i.e. there are not only didactic lectures, but the development of practical skills to carry out quality improvement projects
What they say about COHSASA
Susana de la Torre, Director, Injection Safety Programs, John Snow, Inc: “We contracted COHSASA to conduct Health Facility Assessments (both the baseline in 2004 and follow up in 2008) in South Africa for the Making Medical Injections Safer (MMIS) project to measure the impact of project interventions. Each evaluation covered 9 provinces and 159 health facilities (public hospitals). COHSASA performed this work well and met our expectation. Their staff was very professional, skilled and responsive. They are very knowledgeable about all the steps necessary in carrying out an evaluation, are self-managing/directed, yet proactive in their communications, always keeping us informed of status. They prepared a quality report for us and completed all the work required of them in a timely manner.”
The International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua): "COHSASA is a well-governed and managed organisation which is identifying innovative ways of developing an accreditation programme suitable to health facilities in Southern Africa. It is a young, dynamic, resourceful and rapidly developing organisation which is starting to have a significant impact on the quality of healthcare facilities and services in South Africa." (2002)
"The commitment to quality and willingness to be assessed by international peers is to be commended and makes COHSASA a world leader in the accreditation field." (2006)
Mr George Harris: Panorama Medi-Clinic in the Western Cape "The accreditation process provided us with a strong focus in terms of operational issues and helped with strategic planning and quality control. By following the systems put in place through accreditation it made us more efficient. Going through the accreditation process gets easier and easier. We have passed this high standard and therefore patient safety is of a higher standard at our hospital as opposed to a hospital that is not accredited. We would definitely do it again."
Norma Jordaan CEO of the Nala, Thusang, and Mohau Hospital Complex in Free State: "We have found the COHSASA programme to be excellent. It has been a ground-breaking experience to be exposed to the standards required at an international level and peer-reviewed by an independent body. Since our accreditation we have continued to build upon and maintain our standards.
"The program has shown us how to manage our resources in the most cost-effective way, how to maintain and use our technology properly and how to place the customer first."
Ms Kathy Wiebe-Randeree, Hospital Manager of the Klerksdorp-Thsepong Complex in the North-West Province: "The programme left the institution in a better place than when we started. It has brought a great deal of team-work to the organisation and assisted top management in that staff at middle management levels understood their role and took responsibility and accountability for their actions."
"Because we had been accredited before, we have been able to build on that strong foundation."
Dr E O G Sooliman, Hospital Manager of the recently accredited Witrand Hospital, North West Department of Health: "The COHSASA programme is one that we are proud of. We promise that we will continue to implement the standards and values that have been imparted to us."
Staff of Seawinds Clinic of the Cape Town Municipality: "Through COHSASA we now have a team that pulls together to achieve results and with the full back-up of the community, it is easy to succeed and work can be a lot of fun!"
Hestelle Louw, Chief Nursing Director and Quality Control Officer, Vergelegen Hospital, Somerset West (Private): "You can't fool COHSASA. The programme requires that everyday activities be measured against standards, which require policies, procedures and protocols. It provides a measurable post mortem of the way we do things and burrows into existing systems to weigh actual activity against optimal activity."
John Brock, CEO of Stepping Stones Centre for Addiction "Using COHSASA to have quality in place is a non-negotiable and relies on a hard-working team to keep standards up to scratch. It's no use having an accreditation award and then letting things slip. We have to keep standards high and we owe it to our clients to keep them high."
