Assessing the Challenges of the Iranian Hospital Accreditation Program and Providing Suggested Solutions (2013-2014).

Abstract

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 also cope with its challenges. Objective: This paper made an effort to pinpoint the main difficulties which appear on the way to successful implementation of the Iranian hospital accreditation programme, and also provides suggestions for overcoming them from perspective of hospitals medical and clinical staff, and accreditation authorities. Material and methods: applying a qualitative approach, we used semi-strutured discussion guide in Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), as well as semi-structured In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) with purposively selected hospitals staff and accreditation programme authorites. 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. We also used Delphi method to finalize provided solutions. Results: In addition to four independent FGDs with 27 participants, conducting seven individual IDIs were enough to reach data saturation. A total of 29 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. Finaly 23 suggestions were finalized to cope with these difficulties. Conclusions: difficulties with the accredtitation programme arise from a wide variety of sources. Decision-makers’ achievements in the desidred goals lie on recognizing and resolving them. Keywords: accreditation, hospital, Iran, quality improvement