Quality, being professional, and being genuinely involved form the basis of our care services. We continuously strive to improve the quality of our services by using an active quality assurance system. Delivering high quality care goes hand in hand with safeguarding our service processes, for which we use a controlled quality system.
Within this system we use treatments that are based on care pathways, which are derived from various multidisciplinary guidelines. Our annual plan with SMART objectives, risk analysis, stakeholder analysis, SWOT analysis for stakeholders, our quality manual, and the described processes all represent our monitored documented quality system. This system will continue to develop in order to continuously improve the quality of our care. All of our employees are jointly responsible for this.
ISO Healthcare and Quality Mark General Basic mental healthcare
Our quality system has been evaluated by Lloyds Register Quality Assurance and has been approved according to the ISO Healthcare standard. The European Standard (‘Europese Norm, EN’) 15224 is an addition to ISO 9001, specifically referring to care and welfare. The standard is therefore also known as ISO Healthcare. Additionally, we have been given the quality mark for general basic mental healthcare from the ‘Kwaliteit in Basis GGZ’ (Quality in general basic mental healthcare) foundation.
Information security personal data
Our services require having to work with a lot of (special) personal data. Our management board therefore sees it as its obligation to adequately secure this information and to verify this to all stakeholders, which is why Mentaal Beter is NEN 7510-2017 certified.
Continuous improvement
Since 2015 we use an audit system in which files are tested by means of random samples (in consultation with our accountants of PWC) against the following criteria:
- Are all files in accordance with the agreements and guidelines of the health insurers and municipalities, and the legal provisions? Also, the substantive quality of one or more treatments are tested.
- Clients are asked for permission in writing, which is documented in the treatment agreement.
Quality charter
Our quality charter has been in effect since January 1, 2017. It sets out the frameworks of our services and treatments, and contributes to providing the right help, at the right place, by the right professional, within a qualitatively responsible network. It is publicly available. For the time being, this quality charter is a field standard for medical mental healthcare, as it is provided to people aged 18 and older under the Health Insurance Act.
Goals of the quality charter
The quality charter describes how we have organized our integrated care for our clients: the tasks, responsibilities, authority of the involved care providers and their mutual relationships. Our organization is set up in such a way that the autonomy of our clients is stimulated as much as possible, and the quality and efficiency of the care provided are transparent and verifiable. Our quality charter has the following goals:
- Clarifying to our clients and their family/others involved how we shape and fill in the minimally required quality aspects.
- Enabling our clients to make an informed decision for a specific healthcare provider, and to participate in the decision making regarding their individual treatment process.
- Giving financiers, reviewing, and supervisory authorities the opportunity to form an opinion about our quality of care, as provided by an individual care provider.
Collaboration with partners
We have a national network of practices in which cooperation and other agreements have been set up at local or regional level in order to maintain properly functioning care (vertically and horizontally integrated care). For example, the scaling down or upscaling to care by other parties in the chain is always adequately organised, through which clients are appropriately supported and transferred. Every one of our practices has a local or regional cooperation network of general practitioners, mental health professionals at general practices, crisis services, and institutions with bed capacity. Our quality charter describes how, among other things, the information exchange takes place between us and our partners.
Client satisfaction as a measure of quality
We value the opinion of our clients, which is why we ask for feedback on a regular basis by using client surveys (CQi). The results of these surveys are discussed and form the basis for further improvement. We also measure the quality of our care by means of performance indicators. Clients are also able to leave their personal review about Mentaal Beter on ZorgkaartNederland.nl.
Availability of care
We offer various treatments to children, adolescents, and adults. From the moment of registration, clients will follow a certain patient journey. This is explained in detail in our quality charter. In some cases, we may not be able to provide the necessary care, such as when the demanded care is too heavy or complex or when the client exhibits certain behaviour. For these reasons we use transparent exclusion criteria.