Abstract
As accreditation is of great significance for hospitals, this study aimed to explain the accreditation challenges of Iranian hospitals through a content analysis approach. A qualitative and thematic analysis study was conducted through the content analysis method in 2018. Nineteen semi‐structured interviews were conducted with experts and the data were saturated. To increase the accuracy and precision of the study, Guba and Lincoln's four criteria including credibility, dependability, conformability, and transferability were used. MAX QDA10 was used for data analysis via the five‐step framework analysis approach. The findings identified 5 main themes and 29 subthemes. The main themes included macro and policymaking issues, evaluators' issues, structures, and processes, executive issues, and accreditation measures. All of them contain related subthemes that indicate the national challenges of implementing hospital accreditation in the country. Iranian hospitals need to implement major changes in applying accreditation as a quality assurance mechanism. In other words, it seems necessary for policymakers affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education to revise accreditation measures according to hospital needs and try to clarify the structure and executive process of the accreditation. Moreover, improving and standardizing the evaluators' skills is recommended.
Highlights
Hospitals and health care services are vital components of every human society, to which many financial and social resources are undoubtedly devoted [1]
Semi-structured interviews aimed at determining the initial framework and explaining the accreditation challenges of Iranian hospitals were carried out with 6 managers and authorities in charge of accreditation at universities, 8 managers and authorities of hospitals, and 5 experts in quality improvement departments of hospitals
The final reviewed version of the instruction included five main open-ended questions and a number of sub-questions. These main questions were as follows: “how do you evaluate the condition of hospital accreditation in the country”, “in your opinion, what are the main challenges of hospital accreditation in the country”, “what do you think about the policy making and implementing challenges”, “how about other challenges, for example challenges in infrastructures, inter-sector relationships, regulations or executive mechanisms” and “what do you think about the present standards, indicators and criteria”
Summary
Hospitals and health care services are vital components of every human society, to which many financial and social resources are undoubtedly devoted [1]. Countries are using different approaches to ensure the quality and improvement of health care standards. Accreditation is one of the most effective mechanisms used to evaluate the performance and improve the safety and quality of health services [3]. Accreditation is a systematic assessment by an independent external organization to confirm the existence of pre-defined standards in the structure, process and outcomes with the aim of stimulating the culture of continuous improvement in the quality of medical and hospital care and protecting people's health [5]. Accreditation is an effective program for improving the quality of care, patient safety, service provider satisfaction, and improving financial performance and professional development [6,7,8,9]. Inasmuch as accreditation is of great significance for hospitals, this study aimed to explain the accreditation challenges of Iranian hospitals through a content analysis approach
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