Transforming Healthcare in Latin America: An Exclusive Interview with Jafet Arrieta
In the realm of healthcare, where equity, quality, and humanisation are imperatives, Jafet Arrieta, Vice President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), offers an inspiring insight into the challenges and opportunities in Latin America. With a passionate and systematic approach, Jafet leads initiatives to enhance the health of populations and transform healthcare systems in the region. In an exclusive interview, she highlighted several key points summarising her approach and vision for the future of healthcare in Latin America.
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In this interview, Jafet Arrieta, Vice President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), shares her unique perspective on the challenges and key strategies for improving quality, humanizing care, and ensuring equity in healthcare institutions in Latin America. From identifying areas for improvement in patient experience to addressing common errors in medical risk management, Jafet provides a comprehensive insight into leveraging technology, enhancing care quality, and preventing medical errors in the region. Join us to explore how principles of healthcare humanisation intertwine with patient safety and medical risk management, and discover how these practices are positively transforming the healthcare landscape in Latin America.
Recognising Challenges and Embracing Opportunities
She emphasises the importance of understanding the scope of the problem to properly prioritise resources and make a real impact on populations. She also underscores the need to adopt a systemic perspective and address the five fundamental goals:
Improving population health
Patient experience
Healthcare staff well-being
Resource efficiency
Equity in access to and quality of care
“It is important to be able to truly assess not only what the problem is, but also what impact these problems are having on the population, and on the communities we seek to serve.”
“And in that sense, I would tell you that besides seeing many challenges, I see opportunities. I see opportunities to work, to address those challenges.”
MaximiSing Technology to Enhance Care Quality
When it comes to harnessing technology to improve care quality, Jafet staunchly advocates for a systemic approach. She highlights how technology can enhance medical care by closing access gaps and increasing patient safety, especially during the pandemic. It is crucial to adopt it as part of a comprehensive strategy that includes active patient and family engagement.
Another significant example highlighted in the interview is that of the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, which has implemented telehealth to reach remote communities in the Amazon, improving access and health indicators at the population level.
Technology also facilitates communication among medical staff, patients, and their families, creating efficiencies and enabling real-time data tracking to identify important events and understand their causes.
"...there is a lot of room to maximise technology, and it is important to understand that technology is a means to an end and not an end in itself. So, there, I think it is very important for technology to be adopted in the context of a much broader, much more comprehensive strategy to improve quality, patient safety, and to humanize care..."
Addressing Areas for Improvement in Patient Experience
Jafet points out the need to adopt a holistic approach to identify and address areas for improvement in patient experience. She emphasizes the importance of working from risk management towards risk prevention, integrating elements such as planning, quality improvement, and quality control. She also underscores the fundamental role of effective communication between healthcare staff, patients, and their families, and highlights how simple strategies can have a significant impact on reducing pain and fear in children with cancer.
“The third aspect proposed by Juran's trilogy, which is quality control seeks to generate mechanisms so that once the systems, the processes are set in motion, they reach the desired performance level and can be sustained over time, allowing us to control quality."
-Jafet Arrieta, Vice President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
A Story of Transformation in Pediatric Healthcare
Jafet shares an inspiring story of transformation in pediatric care, highlighting a collaborative project with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Through the "Global Comfort Promise" project, Jafet and her team work with hospitals worldwide to reduce pain associated with medical procedures in children with cancer. She highlights how the systemic approach and improvement science can generate transformative results, not only in patient experience but also in the culture and satisfaction of healthcare staff.
In summary, the interview with Jafet Arrieta offers an inspiring and practical insight into addressing healthcare challenges in Latin America. With a focus on equity, quality, and humanization, she demonstrates how technology, effective communication, and improvement science can transform healthcare systems and improve people's lives in the region.