Alternative financing for healthcare sector discussed

Energy Sunday 24/February/2019 21:13 PM
By: Times News Service
Alternative financing for healthcare sector discussed

Muscat: The Ministry of Health (MoH), represented by the Health Investment and Financing Alternatives Department (HIFA), in collaboration with the British Embassy in Muscat and KPMG organised a training workshop on Public-Private Partnership in Healthcare at Sheraton Hotel yesterday.
The workshop comes as part of the effective steps taken by the MoH towards improving the quality of health care and improving public-private partnership, and the continuing need to gain more experience in the public-private partnership. Held under the patronage of Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Sa’eedi, Minister of Health, it targeted the decision-makers and MOH senior officials, hospital executives, Investment Committee members, Health Insurance Committee members, financial managers and administrators of the MOH, in order to implement various models of public-private partnership and propose a common framework for some health care projects.
This workshop is a proposal to build the capacity of government officials on the issue of public-private partnership by the international experts, international companies and accredited speakers from the United Kingdom (UK).
Dr. Halima bint Qalam Al Hinai, HIFA Director, affirmed that the partnership between the public and private sectors will reduce the pressure on the government to build hospitals and provide the government’s health sector with qualified expertise and advanced technology, which will directly affect healthcare and quality due to the variety of competencies in the private sector.
However, this partnership requires the government sector to be flexible enough to adapt to the private sector that is developing day by day.
and to continuously train its medical staff, as well as purchasing and providing modern technology.
Dr. Al Hinai said that the workshop aimed at raising awareness about best practices and lessons learned from all regional and international public and private partnership projects, as well as improving the participants’ efficiency with respect to the principles of public-private partnership in order to implement the partnership and its economic feasibility for the institutions.
The workshop also presented a study of some cases on best practices of public-private partnership at the global and regional levels, in addition to highlighting experiences of the UK and global expertise in the field of partnership in health care.
The workshop adopted the application and practical training, in addition to the theory where the participants were distributed to equal training working groups under the supervision of international and local experts in the field of partnership. During the training, the participants were given tasks on how to identify the projects suitable for implementation in the assets of the Ministry of Health, (therapeutic and support) services that could be subject to the public-private partnership.
Those projects were classified as high, medium or low depending on their readiness. The outputs of the practical training side of the participants were then evaluated by the experts and international trainers involved in the implementation of the workshop.
The MOH continuously seeks to develop and improve the level of public-private partnership in the field of health care by developing, training and refinement of the skills and expertise of its employees through implementing similar training workshops and meetings with regional and international expertise to ensure full compliance with the highest standards of quality and efficiency.