Accreditation: Why it matters for Hospitals?

Quality is a critical component of high-performing health systems. Patients who utilize healthcare facilities need to be confident that they will receive care that is safe, effective, and consistent with the latest clinical evidence. But all the data suggest that the quality of care is far from optimal. There are large variations in the quality of care resulting in avoidable harm to patients and also creating inefficiencies.

“To Err is Human,” a landmark report that was published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999, recommended reinforcement of quality and safety in healthcare. The report suggested that quality assessment is one of the driving forces to establish performance improvement. External review systems facilitate organizational change, enhance the quality of services, and strive toward quality standards. Accreditation has been cited as the oldest and most common strategic external quality assessment tool in healthcare.

The embryonic seeds of hospital accreditation were planted a century earlier by the American College of Surgeons . Since then, hospital accreditation programs have thrived ubiquitously and become an integral part of healthcare quality systems.?

Accreditation refers to the external peer review that evaluates a healthcare organization’s compliance against predefined performance standards, with the ultimate aim to improve healthcare quality. In simple words, accreditation is done using an external, independent body that applies objective criteria to ensure that hospitals are implementing evidence-based practices to maximize patient outcomes.? Positive impacts of hospital accreditation on organizational culture, clinical practice, organizational performance, clinical leadership, patient safety systems, quality of services, care delivery process, and efficiency have been demonstrated.

Accreditation programs improve the quality of care and clinical outcomes for numerous conditions. There is also evidence that preventive protocols—like the kind we see in accreditation standards—reduce the risk of adverse events such as infections, bed sores, and prescribing omissions.

Accreditation is expensive. The direct fees are only a small portion of the investment required; staff time, consultation services, and other aspects of preparing for the surveys can rack up high indirect costs. One case study found that direct survey fees were only 7% of the total costs associated with the accreditation of a hospital. And preparing for an accreditation survey feels like a chore, requiring focus on minute administrative details.?

Hospital accreditation remains a cornerstone for ensuring at least a basic level of quality, at least for things that the healthcare system assesses. Patients want to know that a hospital provides safe and effective care, and accreditation, if done right, can be a powerful tool to offer that assurance.

Reference:

Jha AK. Accreditation, Quality, and Making Hospital Care Better. JAMA. 2018;320(23):2410–2411. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.18810

Hussein, M., Pavlova, M., Ghalwash, M. et al. The impact of hospital accreditation on the quality of healthcare: a systematic literature review. BMC Health Serv Res 21, 1057 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07097-6

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