The healthcare facility undergoes an examination of its systems, processes, and performance by peer reviewers or surveyors to ensure that all is conducted in a manner that meets applicable predetermined and published national standards. Before the external evaluation, i.e., the survey visit, the healthcare facility is expected to conduct a comprehensive self-assessment to decide on the level of its preparedness and how far or how close it is from achieving full compliance with the standards. Accreditation, therefore, represents a public recognition by the healthcare accreditation body of satisfactory achievement of accreditation standards by a healthcare facility.
Benefits of Accreditation:
- Provides a framework for the organizational structure and management.
- Helps improve patient safety and minimize the risk of near misses, adverse outcomes, and medical errors.
- Enhances community confidence in the quality and safety of care provided.
- Surveyed healthcare facilities have found that seeing their own operation through the eyes of experienced surveyors provided them with a useful, more objective assessment of their internal administrative and clinical processes and effective proposals for further improving their processes and services to the community.
- Proves (on the long run) to increase the efficiency and enhance the lean practices, which translates into decreasing waste and more optimal results with less consumption of resources.
- Helps to improve the competitiveness of a healthcare facility.
- Will satisfy the regulations of the Ministry of Health, being the legislative health authority, which is now considering linking the national accreditation by CBAHI with the licensing of the private healthcare facilities. Registration with CBAHI and enrollment in its national accreditation program is accepted by the Ministry of Health – at this stage- as satisfactory evidence for the purpose of license renewal. Eventually however, all healthcare facilities operating in Saudi Arabia are required to achieve accreditation by CBAHI.
- Better reimbursement by increasing confidence of patients, insurers and other (third) parties.
- Provides a robust tool for continuous quality improvement efforts in the healthcare facilities.
- Provides for a great learning and educational opportunity.