Majid Razaqi, PIHO director of health, speaking about the performance of his Directorate in the last calendar year to March 2018, said: "Based on the strategic document of PIHO, the main points leading to the 'first choice for recipients of petroleum industry services' perspective would cover the three sectors of upgrading the health of covered population and improving quality of services, respecting clients and patients and improving productivity within PIHO."

"It has to be reminded that all PIHO actions within the area of health of petroleum industry staff would help boost productivity in the entire petroleum industry and PIHO," said Razaqi.

"Therefore, PIHO Directorate of Health, in cooperation with other Directorates and health managers and staff, has moved to carry out aforesaid measures," he said. 

According to Razavi, some of aforesaid measures are as follows:

 

1. Upgrading Health of Covered Population and Improving Quality of Services

 

In this sector, in addition to occupational and family health, round the clock services by diagnostic and healthcare centers of PIHO, additional services are offered, including drawing up document on nutrition and physical activity for petroleum industry staff, mouth and dental health and preventing dental caries, providing services to patients who are unable to refer to PIHO healthcare centers, launching emergency services dispatching center, opening new and well-equipped centers like Aghajari Hospital, Azadi Polyclinic and Qom Polyclinic, equipping some areas with sophisticated medical devices like MRI, CT Scan, Laparoscope, cystoscope, video endoscope, sonography and echocardiography, formulating educative pamphlets to enhance the level of knowledge of population under coverage, drawing up pharmaceutical protocols for chronic patients like cancers, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS, osteoporosis, etc.

Updating PIHO pharmacopoeia for covered population to receive new medications endorsed by Ministry of Health, staging numerous drills on dealing with crises in different zones affiliated with PIHO for readiness in emergency conditions, signing agreements for purchase of diagnostic and treatment services from healthcare centers and hospitals in the private and academic sectors, enhancing cooperation with health, safety, environment (HSE) divisions of petroleum industry for synergy and boosting the efficacy of measures with regard to improving safety and preventing incidence of diseases, equipping healthcare centers with latest medications developed to fight chemical poisoning in industrial zones, communicating instructions on dealing with epidemics and crises in order to accelerate and facilitate provision of services to victims of accidents, undertaking necessary measures to renovate ambulance fleet and purchasing bus ambulances, upgrading the communications system of ambulances to contact PIHO organizations in order to transfer patients to the most suitable healthcare center in the very first minutes of accident, planned presence of general practitioners in specialized clinics in order to increase cooperation between them and their patients and boosting their skills in dealing with patients and accelerating the pace of diagnosis and treatment, increasing at least 30% the industrial checkup coverage for employees and extending such coverage to employees with non-permanent contract in order to protect their health and efficiency, enhancing supervision on PIHO centers and contracting parties based on instructions for credit allocation to healthcare centers, boosting the quality and quantity of health service packages for children, young adults, quinquagenarians, women in the age of productivity and menopause and the elderly for diagnosis, prevention, treatment and controlling different diseases, screening asthma in different areas, etc.

Covering blood pressure diseases, diabetes, blood lipids, cardiac diseases, obesity and slimness, shortness, risky pregnancies, anemia, puberty problems, thyroid diseases, liver and kidney diseases, osteoporosis, cancers, psychological health, stress and depression.

 

2. CRM

 

Revitalization of physical spaces, making efforts to increase covered population's access to PIHO services, using software in dealing with medical documents in order to increase precision and pace of repayment of medical costs to covered population and insurance agencies, equipping many PIHO centers with an Internet queuing system in order to reduce time of reference, gauging level of satisfaction of more than 10,000 petroleum industry employees about physicians and industrial medicine staff, facilitating access of companies' employees to periodic checkups, inviting petroleum industry families to family health centers in order to complete their medial files and offering them preventive services, regular visits to different PIHO-run areas and holding emergency meetings with recipients of services in order to hear their views and critics directly, increasing supervision on the healthcare centers' treatment of covered population and taking action against centers not complying with PIHO standards, reconsidering and increasing payment of orthosis and prosthesis costs and paying healthcare costs

 

3. Improved Productivity in PIHO and Respecting Health Economics Principles

 

Following up on and implementing the subject of registration, declaring services provided by PIHO (bill system), organizing contracts related to professional health centers, implementing a plan for centralized pharmaceutical purchase from five leading companies in Iran, providing services in new PIHO centers by benefiting from outsourcing, reconsidering modalities of payment to some healthcare groups, improving modalities of payment based on PIHO performance, using spaces and facilities to provide more services in different areas, purchase of medical equipment without intermediaries from the Board of Directors of the Ministry of Health and reducing related costs, arranging purchase of disinfectants, upgrading software to increase precision and pace of ongoing procedures, reconsidering Article 10 of Petroleum Industry Employment Regulations, increasing supervision on drug stores and process of delivery of medications in order to prevent possible errors or violations