Implementation of international quality standards for health-care services

Abstract

At the contemporary stage of development of the global healthcare industry, improving the quality of medical care is the main goal and the main criterion for assessing its effectiveness. Therefore, ensuring the high quality of medical care and medical services is the responsibility of healthcare authorities, managers of healthcare facilities of any form of ownership and all medical professionals. An important mechanism for achieving this in the modern world is standardisation as a key tool for quality management. The purpose of this article is to study the existing international healthcare standards, analyse the state of standardisation in the healthcare sector as a basic element of providing quality medical and pharmaceutical care to the population, and to identify opportunities for implementing the best standards in the practice of the healthcare system in Ukraine. The findings of the study show that international service quality standards are the most important frameworks developed and maintained by international organisations to ensure consistency, reliability and security across industries. All these standards are aimed at increasing customer satisfaction, operational efficiency and international competitiveness. Keeping these standards up-to-date and compliant is essential to meet customer expectations and regulatory requirements in today's ever-changing globalised world. By systematising scientific research, the authors have established that the transformation of the healthcare system in Ukraine will be successful if the most significant domestic achievements in the healthcare sector are rationally combined with the world's best practices and international standards, the principles of healthcare contained in international human rights instruments, and the principles and norms that define the content and scope of human rights in the healthcare sector that Ukraine must implement. Moreover, it is essential to establish the world's best practices in the field of treatment of major diseases, principles of medical services, and training of staff, which will help to achieve the necessary improvement in the quality of medical care in the context of the development of the medical system of Ukraine. It is determined that in the process of adaptation of national legislation to the regulations of the European Union, all ISO 9000 standards were adopted in Ukraine as national standards and their implementation in everyday activities, including in the healthcare sector, was organised. Considering all of the abovementioned, the System of Implementation of International Quality Standards for Healthcare Services is proposed. The standards are divided into international, national, sectoral, regional and local standards by the scope of influence. According to the Donabedian triad, the objects of influence are: resources, processes and outcomes of healthcare. The types of standards are grouped by object, and the mechanisms of influence on the quality of standardisation are defined: Licensing of healthcare facilities, Accreditation of healthcare facilities, Certification of healthcare professionals. The ways of implementing international standards can be defined as direct, indirect, doctrinal and institutional, so the regulatory and legal mechanisms will operate through laws that have already been ratified in Ukraine. For example, the Law of Ukraine ‘On the State Programme for Adaptation of Ukrainian Legislation to the Legislation of the European Union’ allows for the formation of action chains for the implementation and reform of the Ukrainian healthcare system.