DOH chief to create dedicated hospital operations cluster, says it needs its own management team

Health Secretary Edwin Mercado said the Department of Health (DOH) will create a separate dedicated cluster for hospital operations, removing it from the Center for Health Development regional offices that currently oversee both hospitals and primary care programs.

Mercado stressed this necessary of this structural change because running hospitals requires a fundamentally different set of skills from managing public health.

The newly appointed Health chief made the statement in an interview on DZRH News program Special on Saturday on August 22, as part of the DZRH SONA 2026 Series featuring the Department of Health.

He said the current arrangement, where regional offices called Centers for Health Development manage both DOH hospitals and population-based primary care programs, creates a skills mismatch that prevents either function from being managed optimally.

“Gagawa kami ng separate cluster under the DOH on hospital operations. Kasi ngayon nakakabit sa CHD yung mga hospital operations. Yung CHD, yung Center for Health Development na yung focus naman should be on primary care and population-based programs. Ibang skill set yung sa hospital,” Mercado said.

He said his background as a hospital administrator gives him a clear view of what hospital operations require—from managing patient turnaround times to overseeing specialty center performance—and that these functions need dedicated management attention rather than being handled as one component of a regional office’s broader mandate.

Mercado said faster patient turnaround is one of the operational improvements he intends to prioritize, noting that reducing average hospital stay from seven days to three days effectively doubles bed capacity without building a single new hospital room.

He said the creation of a dedicated hospital operations cluster will allow DOH to monitor hospital performance more systematically, set clear standards for efficiency and quality, and intervene faster when hospitals are underperforming or overwhelmed.

Health Undersecretary Gloria Balboa said the DOH is also working to ensure government hospitals across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao can achieve performance levels comparable to private hospitals, with the Health Facility Enhancement Program providing infrastructure and equipment support to LGU-operated hospitals that cannot fund their own upgrades.