Sanford is an integrated not-for-profit health system headquartered in the USA. The Sanford World Clinic initiative was designed to provide permanent health care services for all.

Sanford World Clinics was founded in Ghana in 2011. Sanford World Clinic Ghana established successful working relations with the Ghana Ministry of Health. They are collaborating with the government to provide quality health care in urban and rural communities around the country, all with NHIS accreditation.

In September 2016, Sanford World Clinic Ghana and PharmAccess Ghana entered a technical partnership agreement in which SafeCare facilitated a quality improvement program in two Sanford clinics, Sandford World Clinic Cape Coast and Sandford World Clinic Kasoa. The objective of the agreement was to establish and implement continuous quality improvement systems at the clinics to ensure quality, along with safe and efficient service delivery to clients.  As part of the agreement the two clinics were individually rated at baseline with the SafeCare Standards. The gaps identified were prioritized into tailor-made improvement plans which served as 12 months action plans for the clinics. Through the commitment of Sanford’s management team and keen participation from all staff, both clinics attained over 80% of the improvement plans and therefore progressed from the initial basic level (SafeCare Level 2) to an impact level (SafeCare Level 4).

What SafeCare did was introduce both clinics to innovative tools and training modules which assisted them to progress through manageable steps of quality improvement. The key underpinning principle here is incremental steps towards excellence, which is why the two Sanford Clinics are being celebrated for working so hard to attain SafeCare Level 4. Level 4 implies the clinics have built strong quality systems and will now require minimal technical assistance, as they have developed sufficient internal capacities to progress on the quality improvement journey while maintaining safe and efficient systems. It also means the two clinics will now be required to work on establishing long term commitment to continuous quality improvement and towards self-sufficiency in quality of care delivery.

Both clinics have demonstrated commitment and responsibility to quality of care delivery by signing up for a structured quality improvement program. More importantly, they are eager to institutionalize quality systems in their entire healthcare network using SafeCare methodology as a proven standard for quality in healthcare delivery.