Health Accreditation through the Perspectives of Auditors

Abstract

Background: Along with the quick developments in technology, expectations in health care services and attention to quality and accreditation has increased. Objectives: This study aims to explore the perspectives of Health Accreditation Auditors (HAAs) who work for Turkish Health Care Quality and Accreditation Institute (TUSKA) on health care accreditation. Design: In this study, case study method was used. Sample: There are 202 auditors within TUSKA who got their HAA title before 2021 and so far, 57 HAAs have been assigned for active duty in the audits. Materials and Methods: In this study, participants were chosen among the HAAs who attended audits actively via snowball sampling and 15 of them were interviewed. Obtained data were analyzed by MAXQDA. Results: For the purpose of obtaining the perspectives of the HAAs, a list of 17 codes and with the review of these codes, 5 inclusive themes were created. These themes are institutional contribution, institutional development, necessity, financial performance and practicality. Conclusions: The HAAs clearly stated that accreditation process contributed to health care institutions positively, accelerated institutional development, proved to be necessary, affected institutions’ financial performance positively, and can be implied to any health care institution easily. On the other hand, there were some dissidence among the HAAs on the effect of accreditation on patient potential, perspectives of the managers on accreditation, health care institutions’ acceptance of accreditation standards, financial burden of the standards and the cost of applications.