Programs for accreditation of hospitals such as NABH accreditation (India), JCI Accreditation (USA- worldwide) have a system of certification of quality of services delivered by the hospitals to the patients.
The criteria for certification however are not limited to the quality aspects.
They include aspects such as statutory compliance which is a mandatory criterion. Patient safety is another area of great importance so much so that if patient safety is compromised in any manner, the hospital is unlikely to qualify for accreditation.
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NABH Accreditation has 100 standards with 514 objective elements to be fulfilled. Out of these 100 standards, more than 50% standards are directly or indirectly related to promoting and ensuring safety of patients.
That in itself shows the importance attached to safety aspects in the NABH accreditation program.
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The Joint commission International (USA) has also laid great emphasis on patient safety in hospitals.
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In their revised Standards for Accreditation of Hospitals (3rd Edition), all the standards have been converted to core standards, equal in importance and weight towards achieving accreditation.
As seen from some of the features mentioned below, patient safety is among the core concerns addressed by these accreditation standards.
1. Out of all the standards more than half the standards are related to safety of patients.
2. The standards related to credentialing and privileging of health care professionals are bound to have a positive effect on the safety of patients.
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3. The new requirement of conducting root cause analysis in respect of at least one sentinel event every year has added another new dimension enhancing the importance attached to safety of patients.
4. The International Patient Safety Goals-—the six patient centric goals, have also been integrated with the accreditation standards to be evaluated as part of the JCI on-site survey. Safety of patients has become an inescapable requirement in JCI accreditation program.
Any hospital that fails to manage and ensure the safety of patients in all aspects is not going to achieve JCI Accreditation.