ELECTION FEVER IS ABOUT TO GRIP ANEW THE PHILIPPINE HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION. 1st of a Series.

With the kind indulgence of non-Philippine Hospital Association members, this post is made at the behest of the PHA COMELEC.  It is dedicated to the upcoming annual electoral exercise of the organization. Past elections proved to be filled with excitement and controversies that Some might actually find the series of articles that will focus on the PHA Electoral Process a good read. 

ELECTION RULES for the Year 2011 which

will lead to the selection of its new set of

leaders.  The dynamism in an organization in

most part is dependent on its leadership. The

Philippine Hospital Association (PHA) at about

this time of the year, is teeming with

anticipation on the PHA Election Rules

package that were released for distribution to

the general membership on August 23, 2011. 

They consist of the following:

1.     Advisory of the PHA Comelec Chairman (text below)
2.     The 7-page Election Rules for 2011 (text below)
3.     Authorization Form for Gov’t Hospitals of its Designated Rep
4.     Authrzn Form for Private-Partnership of its Designated Rep
5.     Authrzn Form for Private-Designated Rep Single Proprietor 
6.     Authorization Form for Private-Corp of its Designated Rep
7.     Nomination Form
8.     Acceptance of Nomination Form

(You may click on the  links above to download the appropriate forms)

The Election:

-Where:  Manila Hotel Luneta Park

-When:   November 24, 2011, commencing at 8am & ending at 4pm.

For the last two years, registrations and elections at the PHA have been Computer Assisted :

-delegates qualified to participate in the poll exercise, cast their votes through a computer terminal.

-pictures of the qualified candidates are flashed on the monitor and choices are made by ticking on the voter’s choice among the candidates.

-At the end of the day, when the voting had been closed, the votes are electronically tallied and the results are known within minutes from the close of the balloting.

This is in contrast to the old system whereby

counting took the PHA Comelec up to past

midnight, in the presence of the

representatives of the various candidates.


PHA beat by about half a year  the PCOS

electronic voting/counting machines used in

the 2011 National Election by the National

government.

After the tally, the COMELEC Chairman

announces  the results to the candidate who waited

anxiously.

The winners or the new Board immediately

convenes and meet in a room within the hotel that

as reserved by the COMELEC .  The Board then

hold their own election of President, VP-Luzon,

VP Vizayas , VP Mindanao , Treasurer, Secretary

and PRO.

After this organizational meeting, the December

Board Meeting is then scheduled that serves as the

Planning Meeting for the incoming year as well as

the group’s Christmas Party.

The PHA election is always full of excitement,

from the nominating period and campaigning to

the winners’ installation and announcement of the

new set of Board and Officers the following day

before the general assembly.

For the advanced information of its PHA members,

all the necessary and related documents on the

PHA Elections are included in this post.


Higlighting the schedules, they are as follows:

August 23 , 2011		COMELEC Advisory on the PHA Election by snail mail, by email, by text messaging, by posts in the website (http://pha.ph), blogsite (http://www.phablog-recorder.blogspot.com, Facebook (philhospitalassn@yahoo.com), Twitter (@PHA1949).  Forms are likewise made available with the Advisory.
Sept.20,2011		Deadline for submission of Nominations.
Sept. 22, 2011		All nominations are sent out by PHA Secretariat to the nominees
October 7, 2011		Deadline for Acceptance of Nominations and submission/completion  of requirements
October 7, 2011		COMELEC meets to evaluate nominations and finalize the list of OFFICIAL CANDIDATES
October 8		List of Official Candidates are released with direct and formal advice to the candidates concerned
October 12-November 24		Campaign period
November 23, 2011		Comelec attends the final Board Meeting of the old Board and reports with updates on the Election to be held the following day.
November 24, 2011		Election day, with casting of ballots commencing at 8am and ending at 4pm.

The PHA COMELEC encourages all its members to actively participate in the nomination and electoral process as an exercise of their rights and show of concern for the organization in an atmosphere of constructive dynamism. 

Hospitals as Schools Partners in Mental Health Service Provision

This is a guest post by Prof. Jerome Babate , Chairman of the Board of the RO DIAGAN Cooperative Hospital in General Santos City.

There is a little shift of my focus this time as this is largely intrigued by a host of problems encountered by our schools on health aspects (food poisoning, malnourishment, among others). The nurse in my persona prodded me to look into school issues from the lens of a health care consultant. 

Personally, I recognize that school success is facilitated by factors in students' lives such as psychological health, supportive social relationships, positive health behaviors, and schools free of violence and drugs. Accordingly, mental or psychological health in childhood and adolescence is defined by the achievement of expected developmental cognitive, social, and emotional milestones. Mental health leads to the student's developing satisfying social relationships, and demonstrating effective coping skills. Let us remember that mentally healthy children and adolescents enjoy a positive quality of life; function well at home, in school, and in their communities. Reads interesting and idealistic!

However, to attain such state, we need a collaborative and coordinated effort among schools, families, and communities to ensure that all children and adolescents achieve positive academic and behavioral outcomes.

One of the most important of these positive outcomes is psychological competence, a set of skills and attitudes that leads to positive mental health and a strong sense of well-being.To that end, I advocate the inclusion of comprehensive mental health services in the schools, emphasizing prevention and early intervention.

Having mentioned earlier, schools are the logical point of entry to develop the efficacy of mental health services to children and adolescents. As a suggestion, our schools in the urban areas may partner with our hospitals (its one way of developing the latter's corporate social responsibility) to craft mental health services for children. School-based and school-linked services can be designed to address students' mental health needs using a range of service options ranging from prevention to intensive intervention.  The key to making mental health services effective is to ensure that they are accessible to students and families

ACCREDITATION: THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE

(This is a blog post by the President of the Philippine Hospital Association, Dr. Ruben C. Flores. He is currently the Medical Center Chief of the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital.  This is the article he submitted to the Asian Hospital Federation for feature in their Journal to come out in the Third Quarter of 2011.)     

Dr. Ruben C. Flores
Phil. Hospital Assn. President

     Accreditation as a way to ensure compliance to quality standards and continuous quality improvement is just beginning to take root in the Philippines’ health care system.

The passage of the National Health Insurance Act of 1995 saw the establishment/creation of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PHIC).  Because PHIC as per RA 9241, Article 1, Section 2 is mandated to promote the improvement of quality through the institutionalization of quality assurance at all levels of the health care delivery system, accreditation was the next step. 

Thus in 2002, PHIC launched its Benchbook for national application.  The Benchbook standards were developed based on International standards, more particularly, the ACHS and JCI standards for hospitals adopted to the Philippine situation taking into account the local circumstances, laws and culture.  This Benchbook was perceived as a new way of incentivizing hospitals to adopt quality improvement activities in order to be granted by PhilHealth an accreditation status. Accreditation is linked with PHIC reimbursement. 

This PhilHealth Benchbook aims to assess the other aspects of hospital operation focusing on the process and outcome beyond mere structural standards compliance.  Specifically the Benchbook look at the following areas:

1.    Patient Rights and Organizational Ethics

2.    Patient Care

3.    Leadership and Management

4.    Human Resource Management

5.    Information Management

6.    Safe Practice and Environment

7.    Improving Performance

This Benchbook was adopted as the new accreditation standards for hospitals and was implemented in 2010.  In its first year of the PhilHealth Benchbook implementation, many hospitals exerted efforts to comply with the standards and the table below shows the percentage of achievement per level:

Level of Accreditation	Number of Hospitals	Percentage
Center of Safety	1246	87.99%
Center of Quality	126	8.90%
Center of Excellence	44	3.11%
T O T A L	1416	100%

Based on the survey results, the following can be concluded.

1.    Benchbook compliance seems not a significant problem among higher level hospitals (Lavado et al, 2010)

2.    Some lower level hospitals experience hardship in complying with the standards because of the administrative and financial constraints.

3.    Training and educational assistance should enable the majority of hospitals to obtain accreditation in one to two years.

4.    The impact of the Benchbook on improving health outcomes has yet to be established.

The Philippines can be considered unique in a sense because accreditation is being undertaken by a government instrumentality.  

To further institutionalize the national accreditation initiatives, a body that will undertake the accreditation of hospitals was espoused by the Department of Health. Towards this end, a national multi-stakeholders consultation meeting was conducted last June 10, 2011.

In this meeting, the Philippine Council for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (PCAHO) was unanimously endorsed by the delegates to the Secretary of Health to be designated as the National Accrediting body for hospitals adopting the PhilHealth Benchbook standards as the accreditation tool. 

This new development would effect a shift on the task of accreditation from being performed by government (PHIC) to one that is carried out by a private entity thru a 3^rd party accreditation scheme.  PCAHO is actually a multi-stakeholder organization dedicated to quality improvement initiatives and accreditation and has been in existence for almost thirteen (13) years now.  PCAHO was borne out of an ADB Funded Project – Strengthening of Licensing and Regulation of Hospitals, DOH, 1995-1997 – that saw the need for Accreditation of Hospitals for the improvement of the Quality of hospital services.  The Department of Health currently recognizes PCAHO as the National Accrediting Body for Accreditation of Health Facilities for Medical Tourism and the Certifying Body for the QSS of medical clinics of OFW and CDTL.  PCAHO is currently an institutional member of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) and an Associate member of the ISQua Accreditation Federation (IAF).  It is also a National member of the Asian Society for Quality in Healthcare (ASQua) and a member of the Executive Board.  It has been invited to serve on the JCI Asian Pacific Advisory Council

The task ahead is Herculean. PCAHO has to gain the credibility and acceptability in the hospital community by establishing a track record for competence in accreditation at par with local and eventually international standards.

It is to be hoped that with this new development, accreditation in the country will leapfrog and thereby ensure safe, quality, and excellent health services to the Pilipino and the global community. 

                                         By:  RUBEN C. FLORES, MD, MHA

                                                                                 PHA- President