Introduction
The significant feature of the health care organizations is that they must be carefully certified and the licensing must be also provided according to special requirements. The government of every country guarantees the quality of the health care services and to insure this quality the special activities must be provided in order to be sure that the services, which are organized by this or that health care organization, fit the standards of the health care services, which are provided by the state. The current paper will provide the main features of the licensing, accreditation and certification of the health care services and will highlight the deficiencies at the institution that resulted in the problems, and the current status and prognosis for the institution on the example of the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in South Los Angeles.
Main Body
Starting with the standards of licensing it should be noted that George D. Pozgar (2007) identifies licensing as “the process by which some competent authority grants permission to a qualified individual or entity to perform certain specified activities that would be illegal without a license” (p.250). During the licensing all facilities and personnel are checked for the fitting the standards, provided by the government, and their ability and possibility to perform the professional health services of people. The right of licensing is provided on authorities, who are vested by the special power. The responsibilities of these authorities are to collect license fees, provide certain minimum requirements to qualification, establish standards of practice, and other facilities, after which the health care organization may be given the right to provide health care services (Pozgar, 2007, p.250).
Dwelling upon the standards of certification, it is “the recognition by the government or professional association that an individual’s expertise meets the standards of that group” (Pozgar, 2007, p.250). The process of certification is provided by the professionals, who establish their standards and if the health care organization meets those standards, it gets its certification and may function according to their aims. Moreover, the certification process is self-regulated and this regulation is organized by the separate association or group (Pozgar, 2007, p.250).
The accreditation of the health care organizations is in most cases provided by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations is the non-for-profit independent organization, which is aimed to improve the quality of the health care services in the country. Analyzing the main functions of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, it should be mentioned that they deal not only with the accreditation services, but also create the standards, according to which the accreditation is provided, and also implement the education of the health care organizations and works in the consultation regimes. Providing the certification procedures, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations checks whether the health care organizations meet the standards, which were applied by the Joint Commission and in the case of some dissatisfaction the recommendations are given with the aim to make the health care organization to improve some facilities and services and to create the opportunity for the health organization to remove the dissatisfied points and follow the accreditation some time later when all the limitations will be corrected (Pozgar, 2007, p.492).
The advantages of the licensing, accreditation and certification are obvious, as the coming though the standards, which are provided by the different facilities, the health care organizations may be sure that they function according to standards and the facilities, which they offer ore of the high quality. Moreover, visiting the health care organization, which was certified, accredited, and licensed, people may be sure that the services, which they will get, will be of the highest quality and they will not have to provide the additional treatment in the other health care organization. Moreover, licensing, accreditation and certification insure that doctors, who work in the organization, are professionals, who know their duties and work with great responsibility for people’s health and life. The disadvantages of licensing, accreditation and certification may be the time, as these procedures are rather time taking, and but this time may be spend in order to insure people that they are provided with the high quality services.
Taking Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in South Los Angeles as the example, the licensing, accreditation and certification processes may be followed with the stress on some failures and limitations, which were identified in the health care organization during the mentioned procedures. Martin Luther King Jr. /Drew Medical Center in South Los Angeles was organized many years ago and provided their quality services for years, but when the problem of certification appeared, the commission had found numerous deficiencies in the work of organization. As the Journal of the National Medical Association admits, the following problems were identified “limited access to medical services, inadequate utilization of prenatal care, and limited educational attainment for many impoverished pregnant teenagers in south Los Angeles” (Calderon & Beltran, 2004, para 5). Moreover, the inability to provide the required financing of the health care establishment created the problem of lack of attention to the problems, which are connected with the health care organizations. The limited access to the infrastructure of the organization and other problems did not allow for the commission to certify the organization as lots of limitations were found. Moreover, the problems appeared while checking the services, directed on the poor and uninsured in south Los Angeles. The King-Drew Medical Center was created with the aim to help uninsured and poor people in the region to be the health care protected, but the Center did not manage to cope with the problem.
The Center’s inability to instill accountability in employees and address sometimes-lethal lapses in patient care led to the loss of millions dollars, which were spend by government. Moreover, government provides the financing of the programs, which should be implemented in the King-Drew Medical Center, which had to be completed many years before. The nursing problem remains on the surface and is not solved, the qualified staff problem exists also. Collecting all the dissatisfactions, the King-Drew Medical Center is unable to cope with the abilities, applied on them. Sill, King-Drew Medical Center has 90 days to check their problems and to solve them in order to pass the commission easily (Ornstein, 2005, para 20).
Conclusion
In conclusion, licensing, accreditation and certification of the health care services are important. They follow the work of the health care organizations and state whether the work is qualified or not. People’s health is f the first consideration for the government and the commission groups, which deal with the checking the fitting to the standards must function and insure society that the health services, which they get, are of the high quality.
References
Calderon, J. L. & Beltran, R. (2004, February). The Phoenix has risen but has failed to thrive: hope on the horizon for King-Drew medical center. Journal of the National Medical Association, 96(2), 160-163.Retrieved August 17, 2009, from Proquest.
Ornstein, C. (2005, October 19). King/Drew Might Fail Inspection; County health director offers a grim assessment of the hospital’s chances of passing a review with $200 million in federal funding riding on it. Los Angeles Times. p. B.1.
Pozgar, G. D. (2007). Legal aspects of health care administration. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury.