Organisation 2020
General Assembly of Members
The General Assembly scheduled for May was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and discussion of the agenda items was postponed. This meant that there were numerous issues to be voted on at the online General Assembly in November: The delegates approved the 2019 annual report, accepted the 2019 annual financial statement, adopted the 2021 budget and took note of the 2022-24 finance plan. The level of member contributions will remain the same as in the past 11 years. The General Assembly discharged the Board and re-appointed the auditors. As the General Assembly took place online, the administrative office dispensed with the usual brief information on operational activities.
As two members resigned from the ANQ Board, by-elections were on the agenda at the November meeting. The General Assembly elected Dr. Gianni Roberto Rossi of Bellikon Rehabilitation Clinic as the representative for H+. He succeeds Anne-Claude Griesser of CHUV Lausanne in this post while curafutura is now represented on the Board by Dr. Renata Josi, who succeeds Prof. Dr. Bernhard Güntert. As resolved by the delegates, the entire Board will be re-elected at the General Assembly on 18 May 2021.
Board
The Board members met during six scheduled meetings, of which four were conducted online. The restructuring of ANQ was the focus of two extraordinary meetings and the summer retreat. A third planned extraordinary meeting had to be cancelled due to coronavirus.
In addition to the review-specific topics relating to all departments, the Board dealt mainly with the following agenda items during the scheduled meetings:
Resolutions
- Nomination of ANQ candidates for the Swiss Quality Commission in 2021
- Continuation of the pilot audits for prevalence reviews of falls and pressure ulcers
- Identification of new survey months for measurement of patient satisfaction in acute care
- Coronavirus-related relief measures: postponement of satisfaction surveys in Rehabilitation and Psychiatry until 2021, cancellation of prevalence reviews of falls and pressure ulcers, temporary suspension of postoperative wound infection reviews
- Creation of a “Taskforce WG” to prepare for the retreat
Approvals
- The Annual Report and Annual Financial Statement for 2019 for submission to the General Assembly
- The 2021 budget for submission to the General Assembly
- Various concepts including that for the financing of the pilot reviews of outpatient acute care in hospitals and intermediate outpatient psychiatry in clinics.
- The concept for reviewing patient satisfaction in child and adolescent psychiatry
- Possible future ANQ range of services in connection with Article 58a KVG for submission to the member organisations
- Business regulations adapted to the tasks and processes of the finance committee
- An updated interpretative document on “Basic principles and stipulations for ANQ publications”
- Revised assignments for the Psychiatry and Rehabilitation quality committees (QC)
Elections
- Election of new QC members in all ANQ departments
Discussions and information
- Final report and findings by the administrative office with regard to evaluation of current status
- Presentation involving possible scenarios for the new positioning of ANQ for submission to the H+ Board
- Statement from the ANQ administrative office relating to the reviews of Article 77 KVV and Article 58d KVV
- Input from the ANQ administrative office as part of the BAG stakeholder survey
- Forecast 4th Quarter 2019 and Quarterly Forecasts 2020
- Financial Plan 2022-24
During the extraordinary meetings, the Board discussed the revisions to the KVG and their effects on ANQ. The central issues were:
- How can ANQ meaningfully extend its current portfolio of services to accommodate the new requirements under Article 58a KVG?
- In which areas of future quality agreements can ANQ contribute its expertise?
- To what extent do ANQ’s structures, statutes or legal form need to be adapted?
As well as the implications of Article 58a KVG, the results of the qualitative and quantitative survey of ANQ stakeholders were also taken into account with regard to the consideration of possible future services. This evaluation of current status was undertaken in 2019 so that ANQ’s services can be tailored to needs and – in line with the mandate from the General Assembly – a long-term financing concept can be created. The scenarios developed by the Board were also based on the organisation’s purpose defined in its statutes, ANQ’s objectives, the 2015–2020 strategy, the tariff partners’ mandate from 2010 and ANQ’s National Quality Agreement.
The discussions showed the benefits of having various stakeholders in the healthcare sector and the delegates of future quality agreement partners represented at ANQ. The Board also developed proposals for pragmatically streamlining the existing structures to meet future challenges.
During the summer retreat, the Board outlined concrete concepts for ANQ’s possible future range of services based on the results of the extraordinary meetings. The Board’s proposals are carefully aligned with the tasks associated with the quality agreements defined in Article 58a KVG. ANQ may thus be able to assume an important role in connection with the implementation of the new quality agreements, particularly in the inpatient sector.
The discussions with the member organisations have not yet been concluded. ANQ is involved in the next stages with them and will report on results at the General Assembly in May 2021.
Executive Work Groups
- The “Strategy WG” prepared the extraordinary strategy meeting in January.
- The finance committee looked at the preparation of the 2020 Annual Financial Statement and the 2021 budget. The committee was in regular contact with the administrative office with regard to the quarterly forecast.
- The “Taskforce WG” was created in July to prepare and follow up on the Board’s retreat.
Administrative office
The COVID-19 pandemic also created additional challenges for the administrative office in 2020. It was necessary, for example, to introduce measures to alleviate the burden on hospitals of performing the reviews, to deal with the increased difficulty of organising training courses and meetings, and to work from home. The switch to the ICT and video conference concept, which had already been planned and budgeted for, therefore came at the right time.
In addition to its routine activities, the administrative office also oversaw various special projects. A particular highlight was Q-Day, which took place at the start of the year and was attended by around 300 professionals. ANQ published an online summary of this event for the first time. Other additional effort was required in connection with the impacts of the KVG revision on ANQ, preparing and issuing statements during the KVV reviews, the BAG stakeholder survey and feedback on the 2021 annual targets from the Swiss Quality Commission (EQK) presented by the BAG.
With regard to the development of the web portal, ANQ placed a specific emphasis on the download area. A keyword search function was added to the site and this was optimised with the help of user feedback.
Hardly any presentations took place in the year under review due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the administrative office also dispensed with its traditional team retreat. Dealing with changes was a specific focus of the status reviews.
Fiona Gubler left the Psychiatry team at the end of January, and her post as a research associate was filled internally by Sarah Heiniger. There was also a change in the Communications team at the end of June: Nora Fehr took over from Brigitte Maurer, who had been supporting ANQ as an external consultant for over 10 years. In July 2020, Dr. Petra Busch celebrated her 20 year anniversary as Managing Director of ANQ and its predecessor KIQ. The surprise celebration planned by the ANQ team unfortunately had to be cancelled because of coronavirus. ANQ advertised a project management post, the holder of which will supervise the pilot outpatient reviews in hospitals and clinics. A suitable candidate for the post is to be appointed by June 2021.