Accreditation pathways – from continuous improvement to an education tool

Anyone involved in accreditation will understand the difficulty in demonstrating how standards can be used for continuous improvement and at the same time be used as an educational tool. Accreditation pathways (AP) were designed to demonstrate how this can be achieved by proposing a theoretical framework for procedures. They go beyond traditional approaches of working with standards towards accreditation, certification and regulation.
 
Working with hospitals in Brazil and Portugal in 2016 and 2017 we set up a pilot study to draw up pathways on risk management, infection control, the safety of care environment, medicines safe management and safety of surgical processes. The pilot aims to assess the feasibility, reliability, and validity of the selected accreditation pathways. It will help to refine them to fit the context of accreditation process educational goals better and evaluate their usefulness. The focus is open-ended questions exploring how to achieve to the standards’ requirements and what is the greatest benefit of the accreditation preparation process for organisations.
 
Although the pilot study is ongoing, preliminary data shows a significant an increase of staff participation based on their better knowledge of the process. Staff seems to be more confident in using accreditation standards and prepared for change once they can better understand the set of standards and the purpose of the criteria during the preparation period before external evaluation. Qualitative and quantitative analysis are being conducted at the end of each pilot.

CHKS will be exhibiting a poster at the ISQua annual conference held in London on the 1st- 4th October. Over 1,500 health care professionals from around the world will network and learn from each other in the hope of improving the quality and safety of health care in the UK and worldwide. If you would like to find out more about the CHKS accreditation programme and this pilot study please email info@chks.co.uk.

Carlos Goes De Souza, Client Manager, CHKS
Anyone involved in accreditation will understand the difficulty in demonstrating how standards can be used for continuous improvement and at the same time be used as an educational tool. Accreditation pathways (AP) were designed to demonstrate how this can be achieved by proposing a theoretical framework for procedures. They go beyond traditional approaches of working with standards towards accreditation, certification and regulation.