Quality Assurance at Benue State Health Insurance Agency (BNSHIA)
Benue State Health Insurance Agency (BNSHIA) commenced quality assurance exercise for the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) programme in the 276 primary health care facilities across the State in 2022.
The Agency in its implementation of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) programme for the vulnerable group (physically challenged, the aged, pregnant women, widows, children under 5 and the indigent), ensures quality health care services are provided to the targeted group.
The Quality Assurance exercise is a planned and systematic activity, implemented within the quality system that gives credence to the BHCPF programme (the programme for the vulnerable group) and ensures high quality and standards of care in those facilities. The exercise helps to determine whether services rendered meets specific standard and goals of the progamme. It involves setting quality standards, assessing performance of professionals with respect to standards, and giving room for corrective action or measures to be taken in situations where the set standards do not meet the acceptable limits, that could trigger penalties due to non-compliance with performance standards.
The purpose of the quality assurance exercise is to assess the level of compliance of the healthcare facilities in line with BHCPF operational guidelines, and to identify the challenges encountered in health care service delivery to the enrolees against the standards of the basic minimum package of health care services and to determine whether the enrolees are satisfied with the quality of health care services. This is done in conjunction with the Benue State Primary Health Care Board (BNSPHCB).
The quality assurance exercise commenced in August, 2022 and is being carried out every year in 276 Primary Health Care (PHC) Centres. The reason is to identify their challenges/gaps in services delivery to the enrolees, and to offer on-the–spot corrective advice on observed lapses, and finally to make recommendations to address observed challenges.
The following graph shows the scores on quality of care for selected LGAs
From the chart above, we can see that Buruku, Gboko, Ohimini, and Obi have 90% score, while Agatu and Gwer East have less than 80%. This shows that there is room for improvement, especially the fact that in health care, 99% quality is still not good enough.
The Benue State Health Insurance Agency is therefore encouraging all businessmen, stakeholders, political class and well-meaning Benue State indigens to buy health insurance for the vulnerable persons by paying N12,000.00 as premium per person per year.
You may wish to contact the Benue State Health Insurance Agency on GSM No: 07042560396 or No. 9 Ogiri Oko road, Old GRA, Makurdi.