Bill 645.

Summary.

The bill proposes to bring mechanisms for assessing quality of care, user satisfaction, patient safety, and complaint management in public health facilities into a coordinated national system. It would apply to the Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud), the Social Security Fund (Caja de Seguro Social), and public health facilities, including hospitals, polyclinics, multi-service health centers, and health centers. It sets out principles of quality, humane care, transparency, participation, accountability, safety, innovation, continuous improvement, data protection, and efficiency, and defines the categories of communications and incidents it uses. Existing administrative units would carry out the integration, without creating new permanent structures.

The Ministry of Health and the Social Security Fund would bring surveys, complaints, inquiries, suggestions, incident and adverse event reports, public commendations, and institutional responses together in the Unified Patient Experience Platform (Plataforma Única de Experiencia del Paciente). The platform would generate real-time indicators. Public facilities would display visible QR codes in emergency departments, outpatient clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, inpatient areas, and other areas where users receive services. Through those codes, patients could rate their care, contact the institution, and check the status of their complaints; the information would enter the platform automatically.

The bill creates the National Patient Experience Index (Índice Nacional de Experiencia del Paciente) as an official indicator of the human aspect of care quality. It would consider surveys, responses to and resolution of complaints, commendations, adverse events, and compliance with patients’ rights; its results would be published quarterly. It also provides for quarterly ratings of hospitals, polyclinics, multi-service health centers, and health centers under a traffic-light system with green, yellow, and red categories. Regulations would establish the methodology. Each communication from a member of the public would receive a unique number for digital tracking and an institutional response within 15 business days.

A program would allow doctors, nurses, technicians, and administrative staff to be nominated; nominations would form part of institutional performance evaluations. Officials who met the requirements for ratings, valid evaluations, and absence of sanctions could receive an annual bonus, subject to budgetary availability and regulations. If indicators were deficient for 2 consecutive periods, the institution would provide training, implement an improvement plan, conduct a reassessment, and potentially refer the matter to human resources under Law 9 of 1994 and the applicable disciplinary rules.

Institutions would publish ratings, response times, complaints, and satisfaction levels quarterly, along with the index and traffic-light results, on their websites and the platform. They would submit an annual report to the National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional). Information processing would comply with Law 81 of 2019. The Executive Branch (Órgano Ejecutivo) would issue implementing regulations within 180 calendar days, and institutions would have 12 months to make the necessary technological adjustments. The provisions would be relevant to users, patients, health and administrative personnel, and public health facilities.