Page 23 - npqh NATIONAL POLICY FOR QUALITY IN HEALTHCARE : Bridging Silos, Accelerating Improvements 2022-2026

National Policy for Quality in Healthcare
Bridging Silos, Accelerating Improvements

Some widespread evidence of poor quality from the aspect of accessibility, costs of
implication and power of prevention (5) include the following:

In high income countries, 1 in 10 patients is adversely
affected during treatment

In high income countries, 7 in 100 hospitalised patients can
expect to acquire a healthcare-associated infection

Sixty per cent of deaths in LMICs from conditions requiring
healthcare occur due to poor quality care, whereas the
remaining deaths result from non-utilisation of the health
system.

Inadequate quality of care imposes costs of US$ 1.4–1.6
trillion each year in lost productivity in LMICs.

It has been estimated that high quality health systems could
prevent 2.5 million deaths from cardiovascular disease,
900,000 deaths from tuberculosis, 1 million newborn deaths
and half of all maternal deaths each year.

Reasons for focusing on the NQPS (4) include:
i. The need to create a culture shift that supports providers to deliver and users to
demand quality care
ii. Traversing traditional silos by bringing together multiple quality initiatives under a
systematic and organised effort to improve quality of care across the health system
iii. Securing high-level commitment to quality through stakeholder engagement and
consensus-building, in order to deliver on national health objectives
iv. Clarifying structures for governance, accountability and monitoring national
quality efforts

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