Hospital Accreditation: What Difficulties Does It Face in Iran?

Ali Janati,Ali Ebadi,Reza Ebrahimoghli,Firooz Toofan

doi:10.5539/gjhs.v9n1p254

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: To determine if an established programme is achieving desired goals and objectives, in other words being effective, health-care policy makers need to recognise and cope with its challenges. This paper made an effort to pinpoint the main difficulties which appear on the way to successful implementation of the Iranian hospital accreditation programme, from perspective of hospitals medical and clinical staff, and accreditation authorities.MATERIAL & METHODS: applying a qualitative approach, we used semi-structured discussion guide in Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), as well as semi-structured In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) with purposively selected hospitals staff and accreditation programme authorities. Data collection was conducted in Iranian universities of medical sciences from June to September 2014. In order to analyse collected opinions, thematic content analysis was applied independently by two authors.FINDINGS: In addition to four independent FGDs with 27 participants, conducting seven individual IDIs were enough to reach data saturation. A total of 25 subthemes were emerged under five main themes. Participants were of the opinion that the accreditation problems include fundamental deficiencies in the Iranian healthcare system, poor design of the programme, deficiencies within hospitals, difficulties in surveyors and survey processes and negative impacts of the accreditation on hospitals.DISCUSSION: difficulties with the accreditation programme arise from a wide variety of sources. Decision-makers’ achievements in the desired goals lie on recognizing and resolving them.

Highlights

To determine if an established programme is achieving desired goals and objectives, in other words being effective, health-care policy makers need to recognise and cope with its challenges
One of those strategies is healthcare accreditation programme (Ahmadi, Khoshgam, & Mohammadpoor, 2008; El-Jardali, Jamal, Dimassi, Ammar, & Tchaghchaghian, 2008; Krit Pongpirul, Jiruth Sriratanaban, Santawat Asavaroengchai, Jadej Thammatach-Aree, & Poranee Laoitthi, 2006), which has its own origin from the U.S (Alexander, 1985; David Greenfield & Braithwaite, 2008), and is defined as “usually a voluntary programme, sponsored by a Non-Governmental Agency (NGO), in which trained external peer reviewers evaluate a health care organization’s compliance with pre-established performance standards” (Rooney & Van Ostenberg, 1999)
Due to the fact that a FGD based method provides a wealth of detailed information and profound insight, experiences and opinions of stakeholders about the challenges of the accreditation programme were collected by means of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)

Summary

Introduction

To determine if an established programme is achieving desired goals and objectives, in other words being effective, health-care policy makers need to recognise and cope with its challenges. One of those strategies is healthcare accreditation programme (Ahmadi, Khoshgam, & Mohammadpoor, 2008; El-Jardali, Jamal, Dimassi, Ammar, & Tchaghchaghian, 2008; Krit Pongpirul, Jiruth Sriratanaban, Santawat Asavaroengchai, Jadej Thammatach-Aree, & Poranee Laoitthi, 2006), which has its own origin from the U.S (Alexander, 1985; David Greenfield & Braithwaite, 2008), and is defined as “usually a voluntary programme, sponsored by a Non-Governmental Agency (NGO), in which trained external peer reviewers evaluate a health care organization’s compliance with pre-established performance standards” (Rooney & Van Ostenberg, 1999). Our research team conduct these Focus Group Discussion sessions with both hospital staff and the accreditation programme managers as part of a master’s dissertation project at the Tabriz University of Medicine Science. We want you to express your real opinions and experiences related to the subject

Methods

Results

Conclusion