WHO Albania: Reviewing challenges and opportunities for quality of care and patient safety in the post-COVID19 era in Albania

WHO Albania run a dedicated three-day meeting on the quality of care and patient safety in the post-COVID19 era in Albania. WHO experts from the European region got together with national experts to discuss challenges and opportunities for strengthening the healthcare system in Albania including:

• Innovative and good practices

• Partnership

• Healthcare workers perspective

• COVID19 response and quality of care

• National plans and initiatives

WHO Representative Ms. Geraldine McWeeney held the opening remarks together with Dr. Joao Breeda, Head of Athens WHO European Centre of Excellence for Quality in Care and Patient Safety, and Prof. Mira Rakacolli, Deputy Minister of Health and Social Protection. During the week, the participants also got the opportunity to visit a primary healthcare center in Tirana and University Hospital Center "Mother Theresa" and talk directly to the healthcare professionals in the field.

WHO is committed to continuing the support for collaboration amongst sister agencies across Europe to ensure quality and patient safety, as well as learn from each other's best practices! #StrongerTogether

What is Patient Safety?

Patient Safety is a health care discipline that emerged with the evolving complexity in health care systems and the resulting rise of patient harm in health care facilities. It aims to prevent and reduce risks, errors and harm that occur to patients during provision of health care. A cornerstone of the discipline is continuous improvement based on learning from errors and adverse events.

Patient safety is fundamental to delivering quality essential health services. Indeed, there is a clear consensus that quality health services across the world should be effective, safe and people-centred. In addition, to realize the benefits of quality health care, health services must be timely, equitable, integrated and efficient.    

To ensure successful implementation of patient safety strategies; clear policies, leadership capacity, data to drive safety improvements, skilled health care professionals and effective involvement of patients in their care, are all needed.

What is quality of care?

Quality of care is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes. It is based on evidence-based professional knowledge and is critical for achieving universal health coverage. As countries commit to achieving Health for All, it is imperative to carefully consider the quality of care and health services.  Quality health care can be defined in many ways but there is growing acknowledgement that quality health services should be:

• Effective – providing evidence-based healthcare services to those who need them;
• Safe – avoiding harm to people for whom the care is intended; and
• People-centred – providing care that responds to individual preferences, needs and values.

To realize the benefits of quality health care, health services must be:

• Timely – reducing waiting times and sometimes harmful delays;
• Equitable – providing care that does not vary in quality on account of gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socio-economic status;
• Integrated – providing care that makes available the full range of health services throughout the life course;
• Efficient – maximizing the benefit of available resources and avoiding waste.