{
  "id": 9761588,
  "title": "Safe NCD care needs leadership, investment and patient involvement – PharmAccess",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/25/safe-ncd-care-needs-leadership-investment-and-patient-involvement",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-09-25T11:56:04.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "MyJoyOnline Ghana",
    "slug": "myjoyonline-ghana",
    "url": "https://www.myjoyonline.com/safe-ncd-care-needs-leadership-investment-and-patient-involvement-pharmaccess/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "PharmAccess has identified four key elements necessary to ensure patient safety and quality care for individuals living with non-communicable diseases (NCDs), speaking at a Ghana Health Service event in Accra to mark the 2026 World Patient Safety Day. The organization's SafeCare Director, Bonifacia Benefo Agyei, outlined visible leadership, sustained investment, effective measurement, and active patient participation as essential components for improving NCD care safety. According to the World Health Organisation, one in ten patients worldwide is harmed during healthcare, with half of these harms considered preventable. People with NCDs face higher risks due to the need for continuous, complex care across various health facilities and over extended periods. Ms Agyei emphasized that the safety of such individuals depends on the collective safety of each consultation, prescription, and hand-off, rather than a single event. PharmAccess employs four interventions to enhance NCD care safety. Through SafeCare, the organization assesses healthcare facilities against internationally recognized standards, identifies gaps, and translates findings into concrete improvements. SafeCare also collaborates with Ghana Health Service, the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), and private providers to embed quality improvement within Ghanaian institutions, led by local teams. Globally, SafeCare assessments have demonstrated quality improvement in 74% of facilities, serving approximately 9.6 million patient visits monthly. The organization also supports value-based care, a model linking payments to patient outcomes rather than just the number of procedures performed, with a focus on hypertension and diabetes. NkwaPlus, a digital health platform developed with technology partner Afrifanom, allows patients to share health information with their care teams remotely, enabling continuous monitoring and early intervention. The fourth intervention is the Medical Credit Fund, providing loans and technical assistance to healthcare providers to address quality gaps, which has supported over 2,100 providers and disbursed more than 12,000 loans with a 95% repayment rate, including 30% for women-led health enterprises. Beyond these interventions, four conditions must be met for patient safety to become daily practice: visible leadership, sustained investment, effective measurement and accountability, and active patient participation.",
  "summary": "PharmAccess has outlined four key conditions it says are necessary to make patient safety and quality care a daily reality for people living with non-communicable diseases (NCDs).",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}