-Published: Friday, November 15, 2019-




By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Social Security reported Thursday an average reduction of 118 days in the waiting time for patients to receive medical attention.

The announcement was made at a public hearing set by the Constitutional Chamber in the Supreme Court of Justice. In April the court gave Social Security six months to reduce patient waiting lists in hospitals.

The Constitutional Court ordered Social Security to design an integrated management system to reduce the "disproportionate and unreasonable deadlines patients should expect in hospitals," said the ruling. The problem is that delays represent a systematic and repeated violation of the right to health," said the court in its statement.

According to Social Security, the reduction in waiting times is the result of a program entitled Timely Care Plan that has the goal of expediting care in outpatient consultations, surgeries and medical procedures in different specialties.

According to the data provided by Román Macaya-Hayes, president of Social Security, the decrease was, on average, 105 days in surgeries, 108 days in procedures and 118 in medical consultations.

Among the actions taken by Social Security to reduce the delay in patients care are:

- Campaigns of attention to the high number of patients, for example, the medical attention service offered by the USN Comfort ship for patients in the province of Puntarenas.

- Increase in the days of medical attention in 24 hospitals and 14 clinics.

- Increase of attention to patients on regular day time.

- Opening of new surgery rooms in hospitals such as Blanco Cervantes Hospital, Max Terán Vals Hospital, México Hospital. This last hospital went from six rooms in 2018 to 16 surgical rooms in 2019.

- Hiring more medical specialists. During this year 286 specialists were hired.

Social Security announced it will continue working to improving the medical services.

In September Social Security said it would conduct a survey of its patients this month.

According to information provided by the Comptroller of Services, the survey will canvass 17,511 people who use medical consultation services. That includes the estimated 3,206 patients who are hospitalized in the country.

According to Patricia Salas-Chacón, director of the Comptroller of Services, the goal of these surveys is to measure the level of patient satisfaction. "It is necessary those surveyed be as honest and transparent as possible," she said.

The information collected by the survey will be used to create plans for improvements and provide better service to the patients, said the agency.

According to Social Security, the survey is being performed by phone calls to patients or by interviewing patients directly in clinics.

The authorities warned the public that no bank details or information about computer passwords are being requested. They advised patients to be alert to possible false calls from scammers under the pretext of this survey.

No public institution should call citizens to request sensitive data such as passwords to computers or bank account information, the agency noted.

In the case of the Social Security survey, only questions related to the level of satisfaction with the medical services provided are being asked, the agency said, adding that the questionnaire is about patients or member opinions regarding service quality, infrastructure, employee capacity, and confidence, among others.

Social Security representatives are located on stands inside the clinics and hospitals to do a direct survey to people. Another group of representatives is handling handle patient phone surveys.

According to Mario Ruiz-Cubillo, Social Security medical manager, the institution expects to achieve a rating of more than 90 percent on the service quality questionnaire from patients, based on 100 percent as the highest level of patient satisfaction.

According to Social Security, this survey campaign is being carried out as a result of the commitments when it assumed a loan from the World Bank.




------------------------------
How do you rate services provided by Social Security, bad, good or excellent?  We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com