- Date2020-05-14
- OECD HCQO’s response measures to the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on quality and outcomes(0514) Download
OECD HCQO’s response measures to the
COVID-19 pandemic focusing on quality and outcomes
The meeting of the Working Party on Healthcare Quality and Outcomes (HCQO) for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was held on 12 May 2020, chaired by Dr. Sun Min Kim, president of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) of Korea.
The OECD HCQO was established in 2001 to develop, collect, and compare a set of indicators that reflect a robust picture of healthcare quality across countries using comparable data. The HCQO Working Party is made up of representatives from OECD countries and international organizations such as the WHO, European Commission, International Hospital Federation, and ISQua. At the 12 May meeting, more than 100 experts from such organizations were present. HIRA has represented the Republic of Korea in the OECD HCQO Working Party since 2007, and President Kim has been actively involved since 2009. President Kim was elected as the chairperson of the HCQO Working Party from 2019-2020, becoming not only the first woman to be elected to the position, but also the first chairperson from Asia. She was then re-elected to serve for 2020-2021.
Given the unprecedented challenges posed by the current global pandemic, representatives in this virtual OECD HCQO meeting dedicated their efforts to discussing health system readiness and the response to COVID-19. Accordingly, the meeting was divided into two sessions: an overview of HCQO original work streams and health system readiness, and response to COVID-19.
In Session 1, Dr. Katherine de Bienassis of the OECD Secretariat provided a brief overview of the agenda documents for feedback. She also outlined the committee actions on ongoing HCQO work on people-centered health data systems; the performance of integrated care delivery systems; the patient-reported indicators survey; broadening the patient safety measurement agenda; quality indicators for end of life care; and processes and updates for HCQO 2020-2021 data collection. The delegates were invited to comment on the progress made and provide written feedback for further discussion at 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. Niek Klazinga of the OECD Secretariat provided COVID-19 response and the work of the HCQO Working Party, noting the importance of health system preparedness and data infrastructure as components of the patient safety agenda. It was laid out that emergency management is comprised of four stages and domains―preparedness, response, mitigation, and transition towards recovery. At this stage, health systems in a number of countries that are now beyond the peak of the pandemic should be ready to address challenges in the transition towards recovery. Namely, COVID-19 poses a binary challenge in which health care quality and outcomes for both for COVID-19 and non-COVID patients need to be maintained at high standards of quality, safety, and coordinated care. 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 the ongoing needs of the healthcare system to maintain and provide essential services for all non-COVID patients. This includes, but is not limited to, vaccination, chronic care, and cancer care.
Next with the Secretariat, three countries were selected to share their experiences in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Kim, representing the Republic of Korea, started off by presenting Korea’s national COVID-19 response, which has utilized real-time healthcare resource and claims data to detect high-risk groups, prevent community spread, and collect patient information centrally. It also used this data to monitor the status of resources including negative pressure isolation rooms, masks, and drug supplies. A Representative of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare shared their national containment and mitigation strategies. The Finnish representative then provided national data registries on hospital discharge and intensive care, in addition to the pilot patient data repository, to highlight the application of data collection and utilization.
The delegates carried out a poll on their national experiences with data infrastructure, patient safety, and integrated care as they relate to taking on the pandemic. The results of the poll clearly indicated that all participating countries faced safety challenges regarding COVID-19 in terms of long-term care and ensuring the safety of the healthcare workforce, technologies and supplies. The participants provided a comprehensive opinion on the capacity of the health data infrastructure, including such aspects as 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 highlighted the importance of an 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 continue to work together to measure health system resilience and readiness in order to strengthen collaboration and generate potential candidates for international benchmarking and further OECD analysis.
