Quality of Personal Healthcare Services: Security and Effectiveness

Compared to the European Union (EU) states, the health indicators of Lithuania are not good. The mortality rates avoided by health care measures is one of the highest in the EU and more than twice the EU average, noted the OECD in 2017. The application of modern, safe and effective diagnosis and treatment methods can result in better, healthier and longer lives.

The quality of personal health care is determined by safe, effective, accessible, patient-oriented services. The audit performed by the National Audit Office “Quality of Personal Health Care Services: Security and Effectiveness” has shown that much remains to be done to provide the best possible services to patients.

“To ensure that each of us receives a safe and effective healthcare service, regardless of where in Lithuania we live, we need to help doctors ensure the same quality of services in all healthcare facilities. This can be done by developing and constantly updating diagnostic, treatment methods or schemes. Unfortunately, at the state level, such methods cover only one fifth of diseases and health conditions,” says Vilma Maslauskienė, Deputy Director of the Public Welfare Audit Department.

High-quality health care can only be expected if it is provided by a qualified specialist. After acquiring education, each specialist is licensed; then every 5 years the specialist is reviewed to see whether he was engaged in any practical activities and completed the required number of hours of professional development. The audit showed that the licensing reviews fail to ensure compliance with the requirements and competences applicable to a specialist in a specific field, i.e. medical standards are to be reviewed and updated every 5 years, but as much as 51 % were not. There are also standards that have not been reviewed for more than 15 years.

Even though it is difficult to acknowledge, undesirable consequences in the provision of health care services cannot be avoided, but can be minimised by risk management measures. One way to reduce the negative consequences of a treatment is to register the undesirable events occurring in the treatment process, then analyse them to identify and eliminate the causes. The auditors found that treatment facilities avoid registering undesirable events. Another way to improve the effectiveness of health care services is to assess whether the patient has received the expected treatment outcomes; however, this assessment is not carried out.

The National Audit Office continues to study the quality of personal health care services and will conclude another audit in this area in November “Quality of Personal Health Care Services: Availability and Patient Orientation”; meanwhile, at the annual conference ‘Signals 2018’ to be held by the National Audit Office, the best professionals in the area will be asked if they have a recipe for high-quality health care.