Seminar LM2: Hospital accreditation: aim or means?

Linked to EAHP statements:
Section 4: Clinical Pharmacy Services
Section 5: Patient Safety and Quality Assurance

ACPE UAN: 0475-0000-17-008-L04-P. A knowledge based activity.

Abstract

Healthcare is a hard business and therefore hospitals want to differentiate themselves from other competitors. This can be done by transparently comparing their services and outcomes. Their strive for offering the best care for the patient resulted in a continuous improvement of quality of care and patient safety. This can be achieved by implementation of evidence based medicine, clinical pharmacy, clinical decision support, risk assessments, critical appraisal of operating procedures, open communication on medication mistakes, etc., and finally this mindset becomes a way of life.

To objectivize this level of quality and safety often an external peer assessment process is used. This can be done by the government or a qualified association such as JCI, Qmentum, etc. In the USA over 95 % of the hospital are accredited for years while Europe is welcoming an accreditation wave.

As medication and medical devices are involved in most therapies the hospital pharmacist, as expert of the medication management, plays a key role in achieving the accreditation. They have to start thinking of risk analysis, analysis of incidents, creative achievable solutions, quick wins and sustainable improvements. However, they must keep in mind that accreditation is not the goal but the tool to introduce a culture of continuous improvement of quality and safety.

Learning objectives

After the seminar, the participant should be able to:
• describe the generic structure and focus of accreditation standards for patient safety;
• explain that quality and safety is a mindset for the organisation;
• employ a risk assessment and think of creative solutions to improve quality and safety;
• evaluate objectively the cost/benefit of the different improvements.

Keywords: quality, patient safety, ISO certification, JCI, Qmentum

* No conflict of interest has been declared.