There's a New Society for Quality in Health Care!

Abstract

The Egyptian Society for Health Care (ESQua) registered as a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization under the sponsorship of His Excellency, Professor Doctor Ali Abdel Fattah, Minister of Health, Egypt, in July 1995. The mission of this new quality society is to introduce the concept of quality assurance and continuous quality improvement to all sectors of health care services in Egypt. How did ESQua come into being? The idea for ESQua came as a result of experiences of staff working in the Quality Assurance and the Cost Recovery Projects in Egypt. Over a twoyear period, the Quality Assurance Project worked closely with public hospitals to institutionalize quality assurance programmes. Both projects learned a lot from this new experience in quality management in health care in Egypt and realized the need for a broader approach to create an awareness of quality and to share important lessons learned with a wider audience. The Minister of Health supported the organization of a national society, with its own agenda on quality in health care, to create an awareness of quality. In June 1995, 50 founding members attended the first meeting of the Society, led by His Excellency, the Minister of Health. The vision, mission, goals, and objectives of the Society were discussed, and Governing Board members were nominated and approved by the members. The goals of the Society are: 1. To create awareness among health care providers in the community about the concept of quality assurance in health care. 2. To emphasize the concept that the patient who is the health care beneficiary is the corner stone for all health care plans. All efforts should be made to meet the patient's needs and expectations. 3. To provide continuous quality improvement for health care in Egypt. 4. To coordinate with relevant organizations to develop, improve, and mobilize human resources in the field of health care to enable them to provide high quality services. Five standing committees were also formed at this meeting, and each founding member will serve on a committee. The five standing committees are: 1. The Accreditation Committee 2. The Consumer Awareness Committee 3. The Standards Committee 4. The Human Resource Development Committee 5. The Research Committee An important first product of the Society was the collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Cost Recovery in Health Project and the Quality Assurance Project in the sponsorship of the First National Conference on Quality in Health Care in Egypt held in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1995. The conference is reported on elsewhere in this issue. Two full-time staff have been appointed to