Enhancing Care Standards and Accreditation's Impact on Healthcare Quality

Abstract

Standardization, including accreditation, is a key tool for healthcare leaders to improve quality. This chapter explores how accreditation fosters consistent, high-quality care. It traces hospital accreditation's history and examines quality aspects like effectiveness, safety, and patient-centeredness. Accreditation is an external evaluation process ensuring adherence to patient safety and quality standards. While beneficial, challenges include resource intensity and return on investment concerns. The chapter acknowledges challenges in diverse settings and emphasizes overcoming infrastructural, financial, and regulatory limitations. Finally, it envisions future directions for accreditation, proposing structural changes, regular standard updates, and a systemic model that integrates industrial management principles.