In order to ensure sustainable socio-demographic development of the country, many countries have introduced and are actively developing reforms aimed at improving the quality and safety of healthcare services. Accreditation of a healthcare institution is an official recognition of the presence in a healthcare institution of conditions for a high-quality, timely, certain level of medical care for the population. In addition, this confirms that the institution complies with standards in the field of healthcare the compliance of medical (pharmaceutical) workers with uniform qualification requirements. Accreditation of medical institutions is voluntary for all healthcare system facilities, regardless of the form of ownership.
The accreditation of healthcare organizations is one of the key mechanisms of the quality management system. They provide an assessment of the quality of medical care and its continuous improvement by identifying factors that affect the occurrence of defects in the technological processes of supplying custody. Moreover, accreditation makes it possible to formulate recommendations for eliminating difficulties. Approval involves the creation of an independent system of external evaluation of activities in accordance with standards, including requirements for personnel qualifications (Tabrizi & Gharibi, 2019). It considers the organization of the work of the institution, the implementation of continuous staff development, and the final results of the provision of the treatment and diagnostic process. Certification of medical organizations is voluntary, based on the principles of competence and independence of the accrediting body. In addition, there is regular coverage in the media of the results of accreditation and the formation of a public rating of medical service providers.
The scoring scale allows one to evaluate the measured criterion and is used to evaluate the activities of all structural units of the healthcare organization. This scale includes an assessment of the management, quality assurance, and safety of medical care, the structure, and professionalism of the staff. Based on the comprehensive external assessment results, the healthcare entity draws up an action plan to eliminate inconsistencies with the requirements of accreditation standards identified during the comprehensive external assessment. Accreditation helps to identify a number of systemic health problems: an acute shortage of specialists, a high standard workload for doctors and nurses, inadequate quality of construction of medical facilities. It shows that some sections of the standards are unfamiliar to managers and staff of medical organizations.
It should be noted that the accreditation process requires a systematic approach and a certain level of training of all participants in the process. Especially it includes the management responsible for setting up processes and training the personnel of medical organizations. The important point is that for efficient and successful functioning, several interrelated subsystems are needed, including a permanent standardization system that provides continuous improvement and updating of standard procedures.
In conclusion, accredited clinics are seeing specific changes in their practices: a decrease in medical errors, reduction of nosocomial infection, reduction in the average length of stay of patients in a hospital bed. Moreover, the cost reduction is noticeable, increasing the satisfaction of patients staff; raising the status of paramedical personnel. The introduction of an accreditation system for medical organizations contributes to a unified system of requirements for the training of health managers, to a wider distribution of internal audit services as an integral part of the infrastructure for managing the quality of medical care. As a result, the level of quality of medical services provided increases.
Reference
Tabrizi, J. S., & Gharibi, F. (2019). Primary healthcare accreditation standards: A systematic review. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 32(2), 310-320.