Daily Times

LAHORE: The Armed Forces Medical Services and the Punjab Healthcare Commission have decided to cooperate and collaborate in certain areas for improving healthcare service delivery in their respective spheres.

This was resolved at the first meeting of a high-level joint consultative forum, which was held at the PHC’s office on Thursday.

Brig Shazia Sarwar Ali, Brig Hamid Jamal Siddiqui and Lt Col Malik Muhammad Ilyas from the AFMS, while the PHC members, including Clinical Governance and Organisational Standards Director Dr Mushtaq Ahmed Salariya, Licensing and Accreditation Director Dr Muhammad Anwar Janjua, Additional Director (Complaints) Brig (r) Dr Shahid Mahmood, Additional Director (Inspections) Lt Col (r) Dr Muhammad Saleem Khokhar and Additional Director (Quality Assurance) Dr Qamar Salman were present on the occasion.

Both sides agreed to share standards and experiences in clinical governance, development of the Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS) for primary healthcare establishments of the army.

The two sides agreed to arrange bilateral visits of healthcare facilities to witness the on-ground implementation of the quality assurance regimes, training of health managers and practitioners, collaboration in research, sharing of data, holding of interactive workshops and regular orientation sessions.

It was also proposed that the quality assurance framework of the Armed Forces Medical Services might be incorporated in the PHC accreditation standards.

Published in Daily Times, March 23^rd 2018.