Uganda National Association of Private Hospitals (UNAPH)

Policy Guidelines for the Private-for-Profit (PFP) Independent Healthcare Subsector in Uganda   Background These Policy Guidelines, which focuses on the Private-for-Profit (PFP) Independent Health Subsector, are developed in the context of providing guidelines and tools for self-regulation of this subsector and also to serve as instruments to Public-Private Partnership and regulation by the government. One of the consequences of these policies was that the independent health subsector, which mostly provides curative care in Uganda, is expanding, fragmented, uncoordinated and inadequately regulated. The outlets for the independent private health sector include the ‘solo clinics’ run by the individual practitioners and or institutions like hospitals, polyclinics, health centers, maternity and nursing homes, dental clinics and hospitals, diagnostic labs etc.   According to recent health survey reports, the independent private health subsector is mostly concentrated ...

Accreditation   Accreditation is an external review of quality with four principal components: It is based on written and published standards Reviews are conducted by professional peers The accreditation process is administered by an independent body The aim of accreditation is to encourage organizational development. Accreditation provides achievable quality standards, supportive consulting, and benchmarking scores, all of which assist facilities to improve the quality of their operations. Accreditation is often confused with licensure, certification, mandatory minimum standards and codes of practice, however they are quite different.  The complexity and expense of accreditation makes it applicable only for hospitals and large clinics.  Accreditation is usually based on voluntary participation by the facility, however in most successful cases, access to funding (insurance payments for example) are conditional upon accreditation, the...