About International Healthcare Accreditation (IHA)
Many hospitals and healthcare providers, whether the income they enjoy is generated from the public sector or the private sector, choose to seek out some form of peer review in order to establish if the services they are providing are of an adequate standard (and remain of an adequate standard).
Some nation-states have put in place organisations to provide this service. Some such systems will simply check if a standard has been achieved by a hospital or a healthcare provider, while others will have a "developmental" element built in which encourages self-improvement by providers, which in turn promotes an ethos of problem-solving within the organisation.
Independent healthcare accreditation is a form of peer review and it can, and does, provide the afore-mentioned types of services in some parts of the world.
Because healthcare systems and the aspirations of healthcare users and providers vary so widely around the world, when it comes to healthcare accreditation the maxim "one size will never fit all" is very true, and a number of highly able and reputable healthcare accreditation organisations exist and function in parallel. There is no such thing as a universal "gold standard" - there is too much diversity in the world for this to be the case, and one should be suspicious of any group who may self-declare themselves to be the gold standard !.
The areas of a hospital's activity that may be considered appropriate to subject to assessment and surveyance by international hospital accreditation groups are numerous, and may include a wide variety of healthcare-related activities, including clinical work, management and administrative processes, education and training of staff, risk management, infection control, research, audit, ethics, buildings and estates, and community-based activities.
The Ancient Greek Philsopher Heracletes once said "All life flows" - he was entirely correct in that nothing in nature ever stands still. Human beings are not trees and, increasingly, some individuals, commercial healthcare providers and even governments are moving outside of their own lands and seeking out the skills and services of hospitals and healthcare providers located beyond their own national borders. This phenomenon is known variously as "medical tourism", "medical travel" and "healthcare-related travel" as well as a variety of other terms. The driving forces behind medical tourism are numerous and include:
- quality issues (including fear about standards of healthcare in one's own country)
- safety issues (including perceived infection risk, such as MRSA, Acinetobacter or HIV)
- the high cost of accessing healthcare
- confidentiality issues (e.g. accessing HIV/AIDS care, undergoing fertility treatment)
- ethical issues (e.g. availability of organs for transplant)
- treatment modality availability issues (e.g. complex plastic procedures, bariatric surgery)
- waiting-list issues (especially in countries with poorly-developed private healthcare sectors)
- increasing personal wealth and the willingness to spend on healthcare.
Some countries have taken this process further, and are very actively encouraging the development of medical tourism services within their own borders, usually as a source of foreign-generated income. Because of the increasing importance of this phenomenon, the International Medical Travel Association (IMTA) was set up in 2006, and a number of other organisations involving themselves with various facets of the process have followed suit (see the "Useful Contacts" section).
It would not probably too contentious to say that the two overriding issues for people contemplating becoming a medical tourist are SAFETY and VALUE FOR MONEY.
One way for such potential patients to establish if an overseas hospital they may be thinking of entrusting their care is safe is for them to establish whether or not that hospital has been internationally accreditated. While many accreditation groups choose to work exclusively within their own national borders, a number of international accreditation groups (mainly from the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada) can, and do, offer accreditation services overseas. Providing a hospital or healthcare provider achieves the standards demanded by such a (reputable) international accreditation group or groups, then this is a very clear way for those organisations to demonstrate openly to those patients who are seeking to establish if they would remain safe in their hospital that they will indeed do so. Also, hospitals and healthcare providers will sometimes seek out international healthcare accreditation as a marketing tool. When one moves into this dimension, such hospitals and healthcare providers may look towards accreditation groups with home bases in different parts of the world, given that the world is a large place and patients many and varied. Many of the more enlightened and ambitious hospitals and healthcare providers are therefore looking towards obtaining dual international healthcare accreditation, and some are even looking beyond that.
SOFIHA is a group within which all who are interested in international healthcare accreditation can come together, interact and compare notes.