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| SHORT COMMUNICATION |
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| Year : 2015 | Volume
: 2
| Issue : 1 | Page : 27-29 |
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Facilitating accreditation of health care establishments: A holistic tool for ensuring benefits to employers, employee and patients
Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava, Jegadeesh Ramasamy
Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Ammapettai, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
| Date of Web Publication | 29-Nov-2014 |
Correspondence Address:
Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava
3rd Floor, Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Ammapettai Village, Thiruporur - Guduvancherry Main Road, Sembakkam, Kancheepuram - 603 108, Tamil Nadu
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/2148-7731.145824
The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that a persistent rise has been seen in most of the infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases (NCD), and nutritional disorders, especially in developing countries. Owing to the impending globalization, developments in the health care delivery system, and rising level of awareness among the people, maintaining a sustained level of quality of care which is accessible and available to all is of prime importance. Accreditation is described as a systematic process by which a recognized body, assesses and recognizes that a health care organization meets predetermined standards. Multiple benefits have been documented secondary to the accreditation of a hospital or a health care establishment. To conclude, accreditation is an international phenomenon and thus should be designed, regulated, and monitored properly to ensure expansion of the health sector and delivery of quality assured health care services to all. Keywords: Accreditation, healthcare, hospital, medical tourism, quality
How to cite this article:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS, Ramasamy J. Facilitating accreditation of health care establishments: A holistic tool for ensuring benefits to employers, employee and patients
. Sifa Med J 2015;2:27-9 |
How to cite this URL:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS, Ramasamy J. Facilitating accreditation of health care establishments: A holistic tool for ensuring benefits to employers, employee and patients
. Sifa Med J [serial online] 2015 [cited 2023 Mar 23];2:27-9. Available from: https://www.imjsu.org/text.asp?2015/2/1/27/145824 |
| Introduction | |  |
The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that a persistent rise has been seen in most of the infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases (NCD), and nutritional disorders, especially in developing countries. [1],[2] Owing to the impending globalization, developments in the health care delivery system, and rising level of awareness among the people, maintaining a sustained level of quality of care which is accessible and available to all is of prime importance. [1] Over the years, assessment of health care services by an external agency, in order to deliver quality-assured care, has become a crucial area of health sector reform globally. [3]
| Accreditation and its Objectives | | |
Accreditation is described as a systematic process by which a recognized body, assesses and recognizes that a health care organization meets predetermined standards. [3] It is a voluntary process which involves interaction with external inspectors to attain desired quality improvements. [4] The accreditation process is undertaken to achieve a set of objectives, namely ensuring improvement in the quality of care available in hospitals and medical laboratories; stimulating the integration and management of health services; reducing the health care costs by focusing on increased efficiency and effectiveness of services; sensitizing health care organizations/managers/health professionals regarding quality improvement strategies and "best practices" in health care; strengthening the public's confidence in the quality of health care and minimizing the risks associated with injury and infections for patients and staff; and establishing a comparative database of health care organizations able to meet selected structure, process and outcome standards. [3],[5]
Elements of an accreditation procedure
Although multiple external agencies are involved in providing accreditation to health care institutions, they usually have common elements in a typical accreditation procedure such as setting and publication of standards by a recognized body; application by the health care institution for registration; payment of the due fees; pre-survey activities; survey by the multidisciplinary team of accreditation body; re-survey, if the institution is found deficient in some areas of delivery of care; issuing accreditation report/award of accreditation; and resurvey after a fixed period. [3],[6]
Assessed domains
An accreditation decision about a health care institute is achieved following an on-site assessment by a team of experts regularly. [6] This assessment is done with the help of multiple approaches such as conducting interviews of the top level administrators of the organization/clinicians and support staff/patients and their family members; observing patient care and services; undertaking comprehensive inspection of the infrastructure; supervising written documents such as policies and procedures, training documents, financial documents and quality assurance plans; evaluating specific outcome measures (viz. immunization rates, hospital acquired infection rates, patient satisfaction, etc.); and assessing patients' medical records. [7],[8]
Advantages of accreditation to the hospital, employees and patients
Multiple benefits have been documented secondary to the accreditation of a hospital or a health care establishment like a medical college. These benefits have been classified into benefits to the hospital (viz. improvement in the delivery of medical care, enhancement in the image of the hospital, facilitates continuous improvement in delivery of medical care); [6],[8] benefits for the employees (viz. aids in education, training and development of professional staff, provides leadership for quality improvement within medical profession and nursing, increases satisfaction of employees with working conditions, augments employee safety and security, and promotes team work); [9],[10],[11] and benefits for the patients (viz. provides access to organizations providing quality medical care so that people can make informed decisions, patient's rights are respected and protected, augments family-centred care, and improves patient safety). [12],[13],[14] These advantages can be achieved secondary to careful planning, organizational commitment, and strong government support. [3]
Future challenges
Although multiple advantages have been observed of accreditation, a wide range of challenges such as increase in competitive rivalry amongst the health care organizations (viz. increasing acquisition of high cost and advanced technology to ensure the implementation of accreditation standards); [3] technological boom and haphazard mushrooming of equipment industries; [15] boost for the medical tourism industry; [16] issues pertaining to accreditation of miscellaneous health care organizations; disease-specific care institutes; organizations providing alternative form of health care; [10],[17] rising trend for insurance agencies to empanel the hospitals which are accredited; [6] escalation of the cost for health care during the process of accreditation; [18] no provisions for people who cannot afford services in accredited hospitals; [19] and augmentation in the incidence of medical trade [6],[18] have been observed.
Proposed solutions
In response to the identified challenges, it is imperative on the part of policy makers to work out some regulatory mechanism so that all unethical practices can be averted. These mechanisms should encompass regulation of accreditation bodies; [3] streamlining the entire process of accreditation; [6],[20] facilitating accreditation of equipment agencies to discourage mushrooming of substandard technology; [15] implementing steps to ensure not a significant hike in the cost of health care services-by promoting public-private partnership schemes or by ensuring subsidy for the people from the poor class; [3],[15] and by supervising the medical trade so that the image of health care sector is not tarnished. [16],[18] In addition, research work should also be promoted to assess the validity, impact and value of accreditation processes in health care. [3],[6]
| Conclusion | | |
To conclude, accreditation is an international phenomenon and thus should be designed, regulated and monitored properly to ensure expansion of the health sector and delivery of quality assured health care services to all.
| References | | |
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