2018-11-20
Audit of the Quality of Health Care Services – Do we have a Recipe for Reducing Patient Queues?
In Lithuania, more than half (54 percent) of respondents have evaluated the possibility of securing a doctor’s appointment at a desired time as satisfactory or poor, and 64 percent of them have evaluated the possibility of securing an appointment with specialist doctors as very poor. Only 15 percent of the aforesaid types of services can be obtained faster than within 31 days. Statistics show that Lithuanian patients seek medical assistance at three times the EU average rate, and the number of doctors and hospital beds exceeds the EU average by 20 and 45 percent, respectively.
The audit entitled “The Accessibility of Health Care Services and the Orientation Towards the Patient ” conducted by the National Audit Office shows that long queues remain the most important issue of the health care system of Lithuania, and one of the reasons for that is the suboptimal structure of specialists, and the shortage of nurses and specialist doctors.
“The shortage of specialists leads to long waiting times for seeing doctors who specialise in genetics, haematology, cardiology, endocrinology, and ophthalmology. On the other hand, family doctors are still occupied with tasks which could be tackled by nurses. In order to see a doctor or have medical tests performed faster, people tend to choose paid services at private medical establishments. There are also those who avoid long queues by selecting to treat their conditions on their own”, – said Vilma Maslauskienė, Deputy Director of the Public Welfare Audit Department of the National Audit Office.
According to the auditors, the planning of the demand for specialists should be improved: it is necessary to assess the changes in the demand for services in the regions, the workloads of specialists, and forecasting the demand for doctors.
The audit has revealed that long queues are also partially caused by the patients themselves, as approximately 20 percent of those who have secured an appointment at a medical establishment fail to arrive. Medical establishments claim that some patients fail to announce their non-arrival, and that there are currently no measures for encouraging patients to uphold their duties.
This audit is the second audit performed by the National Audit Office this year to assess the quality of health care services. Results of the audit entitled ”The Quality of Health Care Services: Safety and Effectiveness” was published in October of this year. The results have showed that the assurance of safe and effective services lack treatment methods, the proper licensing of specialists, the registration of errors, and the assessment of the effectiveness of the respective services. The successful resolution of the aforesaid problems would also contribute to increasing service accessibility.
It should be noted that the National Audit Office has conducted its annual Financial (Regularity) Audit of the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund and concluded that the services provided by the Fund have not been clarified, and that prices are not justified based on objective costs, which also has an impact on the quality and accessibility of services.
Health care issues will be examined during the international sustainable state development conference ”Signals 2018”, organised every year by the National Audit Office, which will include attempts to figure out a recipe for quality health care service together with the leading professionals in the field.