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Accreditation Overview
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Accreditation Overview
Quality patient care must be the fundamental
value of a nation's health system. As Malaysia
is moving towards the attainment of the
objective of Vision 2020 i.e. to be a developed
industrialised nation and as the thrust is
towards privatisation, corporatisation and
decentralisation, it becomes imperative that we
develop a systematic approach to monitoring and
evaluating the quality of healthcare provided.
The quality of healthcare is a major concern of
the government, stakeholders, healthcare
providers and consumers of health services. High
quality care depends on the existence of trained
motivated, and competent staff who work under
suitable conditions with adequate resources.
Measurement of the quality of care therefore
requires assessment of the performance of
healthcare facilities and service providers. The
interaction of factors that contribute to the
final outcome of care for patients such as
organisation and management, human resource
development and management, policies and
procedure, facilities and equipment and quality
improvement activities of an organisation need
to be evaluated continuously. This will then
ensure continuous improvement in quality of
patient care and in the efficiency of a
facility's operation, thus maintaining high
professional standards of care.
What is Accreditation?
"Accreditation is a self-assessment and external
peer-review process used by healthcare
organizations to accurately assess their level
of performance in relations to established
standards and to implement ways to continuously
improve the healthcare system."
International Society for Quality in Health Care
Inc. definition: Operating Rules 1998.
Purpose of Accreditation
The accreditation program provides an effective
means whereby healthcare organisations can
assess their level of performance against
nationally applied standards. The accreditation
standards offer a means whereby organisations
can monitor and improve their performance on an
ongoing basis. The regular survey visits provide
an opportunity for external review and
validation. The use of peer review techniques to
assure the quality of organisation of healthcare
provision is the basis of various voluntary
accreditation programmes that already exist in
several countries such as United States of
America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
France. However, there are also countries where
accreditation is mandatory for all healthcare
facilities and services such as Taiwan.
By asking for accreditation, an organization
agrees to be measured against internationally
accepted standards set by healthcare
professionals. An accredited organization
substantially complies with MSQH standards and
continually makes efforts to improve the care
and services it provides. Healthcare
organizations seek MSQH accreditation because
it:
- Enhance community confidence
- Offers an objective evaluation of the
organisation's performance
- Stimulates the organisation's quality
improvement efforts
- Provides a staff education tool
- Fulfills licensure requirements
- May favourably influence liability
insurance premium and managed care contract
decisions
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