Saying hospitals must radically rework themselves to guarantee access for all to quality health care, the director of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) pressed for the institutions to transition from being "the last link in a chain" of health service providers to being actively and continually engaged with their communities and with providers of primary care.
Speaking at the 39th World Hospital Congress in Chicago, Carissa F. Etienne urged hospitals to shift toward more integrated, people-centered health care
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 6 October 2015 (PAHO/WHO) — Saying hospitals must radically rework themselves to guarantee access for all to quality health care, the director of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) pressed for the institutions to transition from being "the last link in a chain" of health service providers to being actively and continually engaged with their communities and with providers of primary care.
"Hospitals should reposition themselves to be more people- and community-centered and to work in closer contact with the first levels of care," Etienne told a gathering of healthcare leaders from around the world at the 39th World Hospital Congress, sponsored by the Geneva-based International Hospital Federation.
For a century, the basic hospital model—a tertiary care provider separated into wards organized by medical specialty—has remained unchanged, Etienne said. And in recent years, hospitals have faced extreme pressure to reduce costs and to increase and sustain financing. Meanwhile, hospital-acquired infections, falls, medical errors and other patient-safety issues have increased.
Altering that traditional model starts with discarding an "emphasis on illness and the filling of hospital beds" in favor of a new role for hospitals as part of a collaborative network of service providers ensuring patients continuous, quality health care throughout their lives, Etienne said. It means changing payment systems that reward hospitals more for the volume of patients they see than for the quality of care they provide. And it means designing ways to hold hospitals more accountable for the level of service they offer.
The director's call for innovation in hospital care is part of a campaign by PAHO to help countries throughout the Americas advance toward universal health systems, that is, systems that make quality, comprehensive health services available to all people, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, age, race or ability to pay. She said many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are making meaningful progress toward that goal.
Hospitals have an essential role in universal systems, she said. However, to fit into such systems, they must first "shift their current organizational structures to work within integrated and multi-level health networks delivering comprehensive health services," said Etienne, adding, they must also appreciate that their viability will be threatened as long as they don't."
