Diverse roads headed in the same direction?--health care facility accreditation.
Article Type: Brief article
Subject: Health care industry (Standards)
Health care industry (Licensing, certification and accreditation)
Medical care (Quality management)
Medical care (Analysis)
Pub Date: 05/01/2011
Publication: Name: South African Medical Journal Publisher: South African Medical Association Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Health Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 South African Medical Association ISSN: 0256-9574
Issue: Date: May, 2011 Source Volume: 101 Source Issue: 5
Topic: Event Code: 350 Product standards, safety, & recalls; 930 Government regulation Computer Subject: Health care industry
Geographic: Geographic Scope: South Africa Geographic Code: 6SOUT South Africa
Accession Number: 257352887
Full Text: Hospital managers and their provincial bosses are rarely held accountable when it comes to avoidable deaths and unacceptable health outcomes, mainly because of the national tangle of safety guidelines and policies and the absence of a uniform, credible means of probing health care delivery problems.

Dr Carol Marshal's Office of Healthcare Standards Compliance (OHSC) is introducing compulsory national core standards without which private and public health establishments cannot be accredited or access the massive National Health Insurance kitty next year. A statutory body to hold public sector hospitals accountable to minimum standards and for their outcomes is way overdue. Yet the OHSC's track record in working with the established local health care standards accreditation NGO, the Council for Health Standards Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA), rings warning bells. COHSASA's tally of satisfied local and regional public hospital customers mounts by the month as adverse events plummet. Chris Bateman (1,2) reports on their progress and questions the OHSC's wisdom in taking the road less travelled, and whether it really will make all the difference.
Gale Copyright: Copyright 2011 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.