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| Thread: Creation of a separate SA Nephrology Consortium | |||
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| trevorg *** regular contributor Joined: 07/11/05 Posts: 27 |
Creation of a separate SA Nephrology Consortium 29/11/06 2:07 PM Herewith a letter sent to me by Errol Gottlich that he wanted me to circulate: I think that he is right, for my 2 cents! May I summarize some issues from Saturdays meeting and perhaps you can circulate it to other involved SARS members if you so wish 1. Functionality of SARS There appears to be a blurring of the mandate of SARS (as I understand it). As I see it, SARS is a representative body of interested individuals involved in renal care. The main focus should be academic promotion of renal services within forums such as guidelines, meetings, congresses etc probably driven mainly by the academic units with input from the private sector. Obviously practical business issues have now emerged and SARS is trying its best to deal with them by using a committee structure. Having experienced other specialties in this situation, the lesson to be learnt is that SARS should not, in my opinion, be managing these issues. I would strongly suggest copying the very successful oncology (and other specialties ENT, Paeds, Gynaes, and Ophthalmologists etc) model and consider forming an organization called the South African Nephrology Consortium (SANC) to deal with these matters. The SAOC deals with business matters and the Oncology society deals with academic issues. Independence from SARS would therefore be an advantage as SARS is not the appropriate structure. Members of the SANC would be limited only to state and private doctors who provide renal care and the SANC would probably be led mostly from private with input from academic centres. The SANC would have an executive body and would appoint (and fund from individual contributions) an agent (Healthman or a full or part-time employee with PA backup) in order to deal with non-academic day-to-day business issues such as · Professional and dialysis unit accreditation · IT solution · Review of coding, fee structure and remuneration for nephrologists · Negotiations with Government, CoMS, BHF and the medical schemes in regard to the above 3 listed items These are all urgent requirements and if left within a committee/SARS structure will not happen soon or well enough. 1. Accreditation The South African Oncology Consortium (SAOC) addressed accreditation in the following way · They linked payment of a facility to a requirement for SAOC accreditation. This was agreed to by the Council of medical Schemes (CoMS) who legislated this in the medical aid code description · The SAOC drew up accreditation criteria and got BHF to sign them off · These criteria were circulated to all units in order for them to become compliant in many cases it was a costly (but necessary) investment · The SAOC appointed an accrediting body to physically accredit units and will continue to accredit on a 2 3 yearly basis (am not sure exactly on the time gap). · All units had to pay for the accrediting process individually · There was a 1-year grace period given for the accreditation process to be completed. · The list of accredited units is circulated to all medical aids on a regular basis · Medical aids are not allowed to fund non-accredited units once the grace period has expired. · The criteria can obviously be dynamic in order to accommodate change I would suggest the accrediting committee meet with Dr Martyn Schickerling from the SAOC 1. IT solution The requirements when it comes down to issues such as data collection, registry, fee negotiation, research etc are all becoming very dependant on some basic electronic solution. My advice in this regard is for me to introduce SARS to senior IT specialists at Discovery and for them to advise us what really needs to be done and to direct us on how to start working towards a solution. Best regards Errol |
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| razeen *** regular contributor Joined: 29/10/05 Posts: 27 |
RE: Separate SA Nephrology Consortium 29/11/06 3:26 PM Hi I would not support a separate organisation - we are too small and will lose critical mass. It may also serve to emphasize or create lines of division between private and public sector nephrologists. At present we work very well together and we should be prepared to support worthy initiatives, irrespective of whether it affects us directly or not. However, to improve our efficiency it may be useful to create standing committees who have a fair degree of autonomy. The cardiologists do this very successfully -they have standing committees for Ethics & Guidelines, Private Practice, Education, and Full-Time Salaried Practice etc. Then persons leading efforts such as their newsletter, journal and cath lab registry. See http://www.saheart.org/standingcommittees.html. Regards Razeen |
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| trevorg *** regular contributor Joined: 07/11/05 Posts: 27 |
RE: Creation of a separate SA Nephrology Consortiu 29/11/06 3:44 PM I agree with Errol that the full conversion of SARS into a proper professional body with proper instituted accreditation etc will take more than 6 monthly meetings. Otherwise we risk having these important issues imposed on us by other bodies. This has already started to happen with the BHF who are now leading the way with accreditation. I suppose standing committees are a compromise, but if these are not efficient I would still support the creation of a SANC, falling under the auspices of SARS of course. Certainly if the committee elected on Sat in PE (Vakhting, Ivor, Peter Hsu etc) have not made concrete gains in terms of accreditation, we need to rethink our strategies. |
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