HIRA, promote 'COVID-19' outcome at OECD

OECD HCQO’s responses to COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 discussion focused on quality and outcome

The meeting of the Working Party on Healthcare Quality and Outcomes (HCQO) of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was held on 12 May 2020, chaired by Dr.

 

Sun Min Kim, president of Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) of Korea.

 

OECD HCQO was started in 2001 to develop, collect, and compare a set of indicators that reflect a robust picture of healthcare quality across countries using comparable data.

 

HCQO Working party is made up of representatives of OECD countries and international organizations such as WHO, European Commission, International Hospital Federation and ISQua, and more than 100 experts participated in this meeting.

 

HIRA has represented Republic of Korea for OECD HCQO Working Party since 2007, and President Kim has been actively involved from 2009.

 

President Kim was elected as the chairperson of HCQO Working Party for 2019-2020 as the first women and Asian to hold the chair, and re-elected for 2020-2021.

 

Given the unprecedented challenges from global pandemic, the OECD HCQO meeting was held as virtual meeting and dedicated to the health system readiness and COVID-19 response.

 

The meeting was divided into two sessions; overview of HCQO original work streams and health system readiness and COVID-19 response.

 

In Session 1, Dr.

 

Katherine de Bienassis of OECD Secretariat provided brief overview of agenda documents for feedback and committee actions on ongoing HCQO work on people-centered health data systems, performance of integrated care delivery systems, patient-reported indicators survey, broadening the patient safety measurement agenda, quality indicators for end of life care, and process and updates for the HCQO 2020-2021 data collection.

 

The delegates were invited to comment on the progress made and provide written feedback for further discussion on the next HCQO Working Party Meeting in October.

 

In session 2, participants discussed how health system readiness and emergency preparedness fit into the HCQO’s patient safety and health system performance agenda.

 

Dr.

 

NiekKlazinga of OECD Secretariat provided COVID-19 and the work of the HCQO Working Party, noting the importance of health system preparedness and data infrastructure as a component of the patient safety agenda.

 

Emergency management is comprised of four stages and domains - preparedness, response, mitigation, and transition towards recovery.

 

At this stage, a number of countries beyond the peak of pandemic, health systems should be ready to address challenges in transition towards recovery.

 

COVID-19 poses dual challenges for health care quality and outcomes to ensure high quality, safe and coordinated care both for COVID-19 and non-COVID patients.

 

The transition phase may last more than a year and health systems have to balance the increased demands of acute care related COVID-19 with on-going needs of healthcare system to maintain and provide essential services for all non-COVID patients including but not limited to vaccination, chronic care and cancer care.

 

Next with the Secretariat, selected three countries shared their experiences in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Dr.

 

Kim representing Republic of Korea provided country kick-off presentation on national response to COVID-19 utilizing real-time healthcare resource and claims data to detect high-risk group, prevent spread in community, collect patient information centrally, and monitor the status of resources including negative pressure isolation room, mask and drug supply.

 

Representative of Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare shared the national containment and mitigation strategies and measurement of health system approach.

 

Finnish representative provided national data registries on hospital discharge and intensive care and pilot patient data repository to highlight the data collection and utilization.

 

The delegates carried out a poll on their national experiences in data infrastructure, patient safety and integrated care to tackle the pandemic.

 

As a result of polling, it was significantly noted that all participating countries faced safety challenges regarding COVID-19 in long-term care and ensuring the safety of healthcare workforce, technologies and supplies which were rooted from massive outbreak in long-term care setting and shortage in supplies.

 

The participants provided a comprehensive opinion on the capacity of health data infrastructure including timely data collection, person-based data generation, new or improved data linkage to deal with COVID-19, as well as privacy concerns about personal data use.

 

Lastly, the polling results addressed the importance of integrated care approach to track patient outcomes outside of the hospital, monitor the flow of COVID-19 and non-COVID patients, and emphasize the role of primary care during the mitigation phase of the crisis.

 

The OECD HCQO will continuously work together to measure health system resilience and readiness to strengthen collaboration and generate potential candidates for international benchmarking and further OECD analysis.

 

In this regard, Dr.

 

Kim, as a chairperson of OECD HCQO Working Party and a president of HIRA, said that she would share institutional experiences and lessons of HIRA with global communities and support for member countries’ policy to tackle the pandemic and global health crisis.