Make boards compulsory for hospitals – Lecturer

There is a need for Ghana to pass a law which mandates all health facilities to have an effective board constituted, Dr Patience Aseweh Abor, a senior lecturer at the Department of Public Administration and Health Services Management at the University of Ghana Business School, has said.

The clinical governance expert emphasised that just as there is corporate governance in the business sector, every health system must make best use of available, usually strained, resources and a properly established board will secure improved outcomes and consistency of approach.

“Our legislation should be looked at [and reviewed]; it should not be left to the discretion of the hospital to decide whether they want to have a board or not, it should be mandatory,” she told Moro Awudu on Class FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on the Tuesday June 13 edition of the Thinking Ahead series organised in collaboration with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Ghana.

Speaking on the governance structure in the health sector, Dr Abor emphasised that the community would need to understand that there is a body at the hospital making sure that their interests are being taken care of and quality of services maintained at the highest standards.

She was of the view that mistakes could not be allowed to occur as it could be fatal and will affect a whole family if the patient is a bread winner, hence the board plays a supervisory role to ensure that quality services are delivered in compliance with the mission of the hospital.

She disclosed that most international donors assess the governance structure of health facilities before providing aid, hence in the near future health facilities without governance may not attract any donors.

Additionally, she explained that with effective boards, patients become more confident and have a good perception about health facilities.

“In my findings, when I did my PhD, it will interest you to know that hospitals that had boards performed better than hospitals without boards. Even the perception of the patients suggested that hospitals with boards gave them better services,” she noted.

However, Dr Mrs Abor emphasised that in a hospital setting, it is not only about generating enough funds but improving the lives of people.

However, the rapid development of health technologies and advances in the clinical management of specific conditions as well as high accountability demands on healthcare boards has necessitated the concept of clinical governance.

Clinical governance is an umbrella term which encompasses a range of activities in which clinicians should become involved in order to maintain and improve the quality of the care they provide to patients and to ensure full accountability of the system to patients.

The programme airs every Tuesday on Class FM’s Executive Breakfast Show from 8:30am to 9:15am and takes the form of a brief presentation of the specific subject matter under discussion while the audience is allowed to contribute and ask questions on the subject.

ACCA is the global body for professional accountants and aims to offer business-relevant, first-choice qualifications to people of application, ability, and ambition around the world who seek a rewarding career in accountancy, finance, and management.