ISO Certification to PPH: Affirming high quality health care

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan— The provincial government received on Monday (May 12) the third International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2008 certification for the Provincial Government, this time to affirm the high quality health care services being provided by the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital (PPH).

Certification International Philippines Inc. (CIPI) - an ISO-accredited certifying body- represented by its managing director Renato Navarrete, turned over to the provincial government led by Governor Amado Espino Jr. and the PPH led by OIC-Chief of Hospital Policarpio Manuel the ISO 9001:2008 certifications for the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital.

According to Navarrete, the said certification is issued to “organizations that are responsive to their customers’ requirements.”

“The hospital complied with the international requirements… (they have) very consistent and coherent performance targets focused on what internal and external customers expect,” he said of the PPH system.

Meanwhile, Manuel said that the certification is yet another proof that they provide quality services at the PPH.

 “This is a feather on our cap…because you cannot get it overnight…pinaghirapan namin ito,” he remarked citing that it took two years for them to be able to secure the ISO nod.

Less than two months ago, the CIPI has already bestowed two ISO certifications to the province: one for the administrative and support services departments, and the other for the Provincial Health Office (PHO) led by Dr. Anna Ma. Teresa De Guzman, the first and only PHO in the country that is ISO-certified for its quality management system.

 As an ISO 9001:2008 certified provincial hospital, PPH now belongs to the elite club of public and private firms and organizations that are compliant with internationally accepted standards and management systems and procedures for their outstanding performance.

Espino, on the one hand, thanked the provincial government employees and said, “This award is a gauge of the satisfaction of our clients or our patients at the PPH.”

As taken from the ISO web page on their requirement for a 9001:2008 certification, the support services departments of the provincial government, and the PHO, have demonstrated “its ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements” and geared to further “enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.”The ISO certification is valid for three years. 

Previously, human resource management and development officer Janette Asis said that the provincial government intends “to orient all heads of offices to enroll their services to ISO certification.”

“Ever since Gov. Espino started on June 30, 2007, public health and hospital services have been the major thrust of his administration to provide quality health care comparable to those offered in private hospitals but accessible especially to poor families in Pangasinan,” Provincial Administrator Rafael Howard F. Baraan said.

He said that the provincial hospitals have continually undergone thorough rehabilitation, transformation process, construction/reconstruction of buildings, facilities, upgrading of diagnostic equipment, re-organization and restructuring of hospital systems and procedures.

The continuous improvements and upgrading of all 14 provincial government-managed hospitals have translated into increased number of patients from only 74,207 in 2007 to 378,332 in-patients in 2013; decreased in malnutrition rate from 6.55% in 2006 to 3.93% in 2013, which is much lower than the region’s 4.79%; and higher percentage of fully immunized children in Pangasinan with 84%, compared to 78% for the whole region.

Pangasinan is also a hall of famer in hospital management at the regional level.

All the efforts of the provincial government in improving the public health care delivery paid off through the ISO:9001-2008 which validated the superiority of public and hospital care services in Pangasinan.