Quest for social accountability: experiences of a new health sciences university in Nepal

B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), a new Health Sciences University in Nepal has taken several steps to respond to the societal needs and has adopted an integrated, partially problem based and community oriented curriculum.

The objective of this study was to measure the school's achievements in responding to societal needs.

A descriptive cross sectional questionnaire survey (N = 46) of the administrators, faculty, students/residents and the community. The questionnaire included statements on relevance, quality, cost effectiveness and equity in the education, service and research domains of a medical school. The data were analyzed by using WINKS 4.5, a statistical package for Windows.

The responders satisfactorily rated BPKIHS. The mean rating (mean 3.11, SD = 1.06) was more than the satisfactory score (3). The responders were satisfied with the education (Mean = 3.26, SD = 1.06) and research (Mean = 3.12, SD = 1.10) but were less satisfied with the service domain (Mean = 2.94, SD = 0.98). The majority believed that the service is based on health care priorities (72%), and includes primary care (80%). A fair proportion felt the need for improvements in quality of care (50%) and cost effectiveness of care (46%). In general the faculty and administrators groups were more satisfied than the community and students/residents groups.

The study was useful in identifying the school's strengths as well as weaknesses in responding to the societal needs.