MBA 560 Healthcare Management: Interactions With a KSA Healthcare

In your current role, describe your interactions with a KSA healthcare accreditation body. What was the accreditation agency? Did the accreditation body focus on large quality improvement items or lower priority but easier to address items (i.e., cleanliness, organization of supplies, etc.)?

If you have had no interaction with accreditation agencies, based on the course readings, do you believe accrediting bodies are important to healthcare quality improvement? Why or why not?

Answer:

Being a staff nurse of recovery area, I have had no interaction with any particular accreditation body as of now but it has many impacts on the clinical settings of any kind of healthcare organization in all over the world. Accreditation is basically a voluntary program which is sponsored by any non-governmental organization. Some trained external peers review the compliance of a healthcare organization and compare it with pre-established performance standards. It usually appears to improve the structure as well as the process of care. The quality of healthcare has been a vital issue for most of the health organizations. The prime goal of accreditation system is to identify the deficiencies in care so that the deficiencies can be removed by the hospitals (Tabrizi, Gharibi & Wilson, 2011).

Hospitals are being recognized for their significant role in improving and advancing the community health as well as wellbeing. It is the utmost responsibility of any healthcare organization to provide a top quality service to its customers. In order to achieve that healthcare organizations acquire lots of strategies and techniques. Accreditation in this regard is considered as a useful means of establishing national standard in order to eliminate the inappropriate care in healthcare organizations. Various studies have revealed that accreditation programs contribute to the quality of healthcare services (Brubakk, Vist, Bukholm, Barach & Tjomsland, 2015). There are even some considerable evidences that show general accreditation program improves the clinical outcome and a wide spectrum of various clinical conditions can also get benefited with it (Alkhenizan & Shaw, 2011). The underlying standards and processes of accreditation are designed considering the needs and expectation of any country.  It identifies any risk associated with the care of patient which may harm the health outcome of them. Accreditation brings many other benefits to the healthcare organization as high the accreditation rank helps a healthcare organization to attract more customers and it also impacts the productivity of the organization. Customers rely on the established quality standards of the healthcare organizations which improves the business. Again, accreditation also provides easier access to payer networks as well as specialty medications which is beneficial too.

Independent validation of the commitment of hospitals towards the quality patient care differentiates them from their competition as well. Accreditation puts a closer look on each and every service quality of the healthcare organization and mentions all the gaps and identifies the areas in which more attention is required. According to the report of the accreditation, hospitals and other healthcare organization works to improve its performance standard and as a result the overall service quality is improved which is good for the patients and at the same time it increases the reputation of the hospitals resulting in a competitive edge in the market. However, various limitations are there while choosing the correct accreditation that suits the business. It is also a time-consuming process and in some cases it takes time of a year or longer than that. The cost is another factor in this regard. But, looking on the series of advantages of accreditation onto the business, healthcare organizations selects them to get benefited (Algahtani, Aldarmahi, Manlangit Jr & Shirahb, 2017).   

References

Algahtani, H., Aldarmahi, A., Manlangit Jr, J., & Shirahb, B. (2017). Perception of hospital accreditation among health professionals in Saudi Arabia. Annals of Saudi medicine, 37(4), 326. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Juan_Jr_Manlangit2/publication/318895488_Perception_of_Hospital_Accreditation_among_Health_Professionals_in_Saudi_Arabia/links/5990095b0f7e9bf4fbd54343/Perception-of-Hospital-Accreditation-among-Health-Professionals-in-Saudi-Arabia.pdf  

Alkhenizan, A., & Shaw, C. (2011). Impact of accreditation on the quality of healthcare services: a systematic review of the literature. Annals of Saudi medicine, 31(4), 407. Doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4103%2F0256-4947.83204 

Brubakk, K., Vist, G. E., Bukholm, G., Barach, P., & Tjomsland, O. (2015). A systematic review of hospital accreditation: the challenges of measuring complex intervention effects. BMC health services research, 15(1), 280. Retrieved from https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-015-0933-x 

Tabrizi, J. S., Gharibi, F., & Wilson, A. J. (2011). Advantages and disadvantages of health care accreditation models. Health promotion perspectives, 1(1), 1. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3963612/