KATH repositioning itself to become patient-centred facility – Addai-Mensah

Kumasi-Ghana, March 22, GNA – The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, is repositioning itself as the patient-centred tertiary health institution which will be preferred by all for healthcare, training, and research in the West African sub-region.
The Hospital is currently putting in place strategies to offer the most efficient professional and compassionate services to its clients to make it a truly customer-focused friendly health facility.
Among the strategies are the introduction of directors’ weekend and holidays’ duty roster to help maintain executive management presence and supervision during those days, unannounced visits by directors during working hours.
This will help maintain management physical presence at the various operational areas as well as the insistence of timely commencement of clinical services at all specialist consulting rooms to prevent all forms of undue delays experienced by patients.
Professor Otchere Addai-Mensah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Hospital, said these at the opening of the 2022 end of year performance review meeting in Kumasi.
The meeting was on the theme, “Driving a customer centered agenda for healthcare delivery; the role of KATH management, staff and stakeholders.”
It was aimed at creating a platform for formal and comprehensive assessment of the collective performance of the Hospital during the year under review.
It was also aimed at designing new strategies that could be deployed to address some of the registered challenges and short falls of the Hospital.
Prof Addai-Mensah, said patients had become more informed and better connected and expected the highest standards of professional care, speed, satisfaction, and confidentiality in accessing healthcare.
“We must learn to put patients at heart of all policies, decisions, processes, services and procedures, if we are to remain competitive as a facility of choice for our clients in the face of ever-changing needs of customers,” he stated.
The CEO stressed the need to build and maintain an organisational service culture that squarely put patients at the centre of the hospital’s operational models and policies with a single-minded focus on understanding their needs.
This should come with the aim of meeting or even exceeding their expectations.
Dr Darius Osei-Kofi, CEO of University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC), said to achieve quality services as a teaching hospital, management and staff should not compete with numbers, but must provide tertiary healthcare services that came with equity and efficiency.
The Hospital must define its roles properly in terms of amenities to match its services while ensuring that the technical competence of the staff remained standard.
“The effectiveness of care should always be related to health outcomes, continuity of care, and consulting to ensure that care is continued,” he added.