What is accreditation in hospital and how does it matter to me as a patient?

Hospitals are one of the most complex organizations ever built by human beings (Peter Drucker). A large number of functions happens in a hospital and each function is important for effectively delivering healthcare to patients. For common people it is virtually impossible to get information of these internal functions of the hospital or to understand how it affects their healthcare. This limitation on part of patient group, many time results in selection of hospitals that lack basic quality features necessary for providing medical care to patients. Thankfully, there is a solution to this problem in form of ‘accreditation’, which is a mark of quality in hospitals.
Accreditation serves as an assurance to patients that the hospital is of good quality and safe for their medical care. This is the reason why one of the important point in my post on ‘5 points on how to select a good hospital’, is on accreditation status of the hospital. Here I am going to give some basic details of what is accreditation and how does it benefits patients.

Accreditation in hospitals

Accreditation is a recognition given to a hospital that they follow all those standards that is necessary for providing good quality and safe medical care to patients. The standards are decided by the accreditation body and hospital must comply to all of them in-order to get recognized as accredited hospital. In India, mainly two bodies provide accreditation, one is national body called ‘National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) and other is an international body called Joint Commission International (JCI). There are very few JCI accredited hospitals and few hundred NABH accredited hospitals in India, but they are growing fast. Government and Insurance companies also promote hospitals to get accreditation.

How does the accreditation system work?

A hospital that wants to get accreditation goes through all the standards that are required to be followed. The hospital then makes effort to fulfil all those requirements. These requirements are related to multiple functions such as clinical care, nursing care, medicines, infrastructure of hospital, infection control etc. A hospital generally takes about 6 to 18 months to prepare for accreditation. Once they have prepared, the people for the accreditation body comes to assess (inspect) the hospital in detail, based on which it is decided whether or not hospital can be given accreditation. The processes of assessment are carried out regularly about once in 2 to 3 years to ensure that hospital continues to follow the standards.

How does it benefit patients?

The entire focus of hospital accreditation is on patient and their medical care. A patient gets assurance of being taken care of properly at the hospital. Following are some specific things that a patient can expect at an accredited hospital

  

• Treatment by doctors and nurses who are appropriately qualified and their degrees verified

• Availability of necessary information about their disease and treatment

• Prior information on estimated cost of treatment 

• Standardized pricing and no irrational money making practices

• Fulfilment of basic rights of patients such as privacy, confidentiality, respect etc.

• Low risk of any errors in their medical care due to following of good practices

• Low risk of catching other infection from hospital due to following of best infection control practices

• Standardized documentation of their medical care and availability of necessary documents and records to patient

• System to take care of any unexpected medical emergency of patient such as cardiac arrest

• Clean and hygienic environment, food, water and other items of consumption

• Opportunity to raise complaint and get a resolution to their complaint from hospital management

It is necessary for an accredited hospital to abide by accreditation standards. As a patient, if you find any lack in hospital towards patient care, a complaint can be send to the accreditation agency, who take such complaints from patients seriously.

How can one find accredited hospital?

Getting accreditation status is a matter of pride for hospitals and they usually display their accreditation status in their hospital and website? However, to the genuineness of claim of accreditation can be checked online through on the accreditation website. You can click on these links to get a list of accredited hospital. NABH accredited hospital and JCI accredited hospitals.

If you have any suggestion for this post or have any question, please ask in comment.