The Role of Accreditation in the Hospital Setting
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The Role of Accreditation in the Hospital Setting
Health care is a domain that attracts interest from every sector of the society, and key players compete to service delivery for the people (Arbhiblad & Putnam, 2013). This drives setting of standards uniform for every player in the domain to ensure quality operations and service delivery to clients. Governments and administrations get to establish regulatory bodies and accreditation entities within different sectors that would ensure quality delivery of products or services to the public and fight substandard products. The players in the areas who are product and service deliverers, on the other hand, set their internal standards that would ensure they comply with the set standards for government and key regulatory institutions.
Therefore, accreditation comprises self-assessment coupling with the assessment by external entities applicable to health organizations to assess the level of performance and service delivery. The measure of service delivery and performance of healthcare institutions gets the relation to the standards set to identify gaps, improve performance continually, and gauge the capacity of the organization to deliver services. Healthcare sector like any other domain faces continual changes and transitions that an institution has to come to terms with to continually better service offerings. It is indeed true that healthcare organizations stand to benefit from adopting the new trends in service delivery and technology that improves healthcare quality.
As much as healthcare institutions may keep to standards, continual internal assessment and checks by eternal entity provide for check and balance to promote accuracy in service delivery within facilities. Accreditation serves to benefit in different ways for the governments, institutions, and the public by ensuring service efficiencies that reduces complications and save costs (Alkhenizan, & Shaw, 2011). Healthcare organizations have to seek accreditation for different programs and services that they tend to offer to ensure they meet the required threshold.
Whether or Not Accreditation is Mandatory
According to Braithwaite, Greenfield, Hinchcliff, Moldovan, & Pawsey (2012) accreditation is vital for every healthcare organization as it provides that they exhibit the capacity to meet set standards established by governing or regulatory agencies. Accreditation is critical than mandatory to organizations since it sets precedence for image of the hospital to general public and service seekers and ensure that the services offered are of quality and meet the general criteria. If accredited, an agency presents itself as credible and reputable before the public and show commitment to quality standards and continuous compliance with the highest quality standards.
The mandatory aspect of accreditation comes in the light of the efforts to ensure that service delivery meets the needs of the public and set standards set for services ensure higher quality. Arbhiblad & Putnam (2013) argue that accreditation institutions collaborate with experts to create relevant standards that provide maintaining of quality in all aspects of the healthcare body. Though not mandatory, accreditation is an important part of the brand and image of a healthcare institution and ensures the interests of services seekers are protected and authentic services offered. Even as accreditation differs within regions, it helps organizations have their services meet the international standards and gives them service offering ability anywhere.
Hospital accreditation helps ensure that the healthcare institutions meet the patients’ desires and that they offer services that are recognizable in an ordered manner (Braithwaite, et al., 2012). An accredited hospital will tend to market itself, and its services will attract a larger client base than those not accredited, as patients tend to trust services given international recognition. The services given recognition confirm hospital’s commitment to quality adjustment of services to the public and focus on patient’s interest. Hospital accreditation should be a compulsory process in meeting set standards established by experts in healthcare.
Weaknesses Inherent in the Healthcare Accreditation Process
According to Braithwaite, et al., (2012) for hospitals and healthcare organizations to get funding for some services and programs, accreditation is necessary, and this could be a negative driver. Institutions can concentrate on funding as a reason for meeting accreditation standards that may not be inherent in the daily service delivery. It can be a mere purpose that healthcare organizations set to meet certain standards certainly for their services to get the recognition that will make them market and gain more clients. Therefore, it is hard to establish whether an institution would keep to the standards even after the external assessment for accreditation and the motif for the accreditation requirement by an institution may not be clear.
On the other hand, hospitals can get accreditation for some services while offering services that are not accredited alongside. Since the assessments are periodic, it is hard to establish if an institution keeps to the standards set forth on service delivery or when the practice is squashed after accreditation. Therefore, the purpose may simply be to market the hospital and improve its brand and healthcare organizations may only use the process as a veil to increase their earning rather than maintaining quality. Arbhiblad & Putnam (2013) argue that even as there may be reporting needs for the accredited facilities, reports may be flawed to meet directly the demands rather than committing to the standards.
There are different levels of accreditation that a healthcare organization can be granted for the service quality (Alkhenizan, & Shaw, 2011). Among the accreditation is denial accreditation, which indicates that a facility has not met the accreditation requirements and the interim certification that means an institution needs to improve on other areas to meet full accreditation. To be accredited, any system must be aware of the standards of the accrediting body and be willing to incorporate them into their processes to be part of their service delivery.
Handling the Accreditation Process
A healthcare organization must be at par with the standards of an accrediting body and knowledge of its assessment process and the assessment requirements to meet the set standards for incorporation into an accreditation certification (Braithwaite, et al., 2012). With the proper knowledge of the accreditation requirements, an organization can conduct an internal analysis to identify gaps that need improvement before applying for certification by the relevant body. According to (Alkhenizan, & Shaw (2011) all the policies and procedures of the institution have to be in line with the requirements of the accrediting agency, and the CEO has to drive the process of ensuring meeting the needs. The policies will focus on the standards and address the areas that need adjustment and target specific improvements necessary for an institution.
It is important as a head of healthcare organization to ensure that the employees get involvement and information on every process towards accreditation to overcome any obstacle. When all the necessary procedures are set, and the employees have shown readiness to the changes, the institution can assess its readiness for accreditation and then take on the process of ensuring that training continues. The continuous changes will ensure that the changes are sustainable and not only set for certification then die in the process (Arbhiblad & Putnam, 2013). After evaluating and refining the process, the institution can take on self-assessment based on the criteria of the accrediting agency. Final adjustments can be made on the final external accreditation and certification is conducted. Each of the processes towards achieving certification takes close to three months depending on the size of the hospital and service to get accreditation.