Bupa to rate international hospitals

Bupa International

Bupa International are creating a quality assurance programme for international hospitals.

Bupa International works in tandem with hospitals around the world and also provides health insurance for expatriates. Together with Joint Commission International, an organisation that accredits healthcare, Bupa International plan to evaluate the level of healthcare provided by the 7,500 healthcare institutions with which they work worldwide.

The hospitals that work in league with Bupa will be given an assessment package with which they can judge the standards of areas such as equipment, clinical quality and patient wellbeing. With this information, Bupa International will then have a thorough and detailed database giving the good points and bad points of all the hospitals with which they work.

Bupa International’s medical director, Dr Sneh Khemka, said: “We’re excited to be working with JCI in developing our quality assurance programme. This programme differs from those used by many health insurers because we use medical expertise to set standards for those hospitals and facilities that we promote to our customers, enabling us to select hospitals primarily according to the hospital’s ability to provide the right treatment and quality of care, not simply on the basis of cost.”

A number of international healthcare accreditation organisations have become prominent in the last few years, however Joint Commission International is the world’s largest. Dr Khemka added that “Our collaboration with JCI means that we can support hospitals in their continual quality improvement initiatives, ensuring standards improve further”.

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