Medical practices across Australia place a high level of importance on gaining formal accreditation. As an internationally recognised process of evaluation and assessment, medical practice accreditation aims to maintain and, indeed, improve the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care organisations.
Why Would a Practice Undergo Accreditation?
Accreditation isn’t merely the practice of spending money on a plaque. Once your medical practice is accredited, this means you’ve gained independent recognition that you meet the stringent requirements of governing industry standards.
Accreditation guarantees that you are:
- Meeting industry benchmarks – Your staff, managers, funding bodies, and patients are reassured that your practice meets minimum quality and safety guidelines.
- Prioritising patient safety – Your patients are set at ease that you are actively dedicated to delivering them high quality care and the highest of safety standards.
- Committed to quality improvement – You’re always looking at ways to improve systems, policies, processes, risk management, culture, and staff training.
Accreditation for medical practices is both a badge of honour and your ongoing commitment to your management, staff, funding bodies, and patients that you are committed to constant high quality standards and continuous improvement.
Your medical practice’s adherence to evidence-based standards is aimed to provide higher quality health care services, increasingly safer environments for patients, and the ability to effectively adapt to the changing conditions of health care delivery.
Accreditation for medical practices is an investment in the ongoing and future state of the quality of the health care you provide.
The Process of Accreditation for Medical Practices
The process of accreditation is fairly straightforward:
- Pre-application – The process by which the governing body assesses your medical practice’s suitability for accreditation. You fill out an application form provided by the accreditation organisation and the information you give will be evaluated to determine whether they can actually accredit your practice.
- Application – After succeeding in the pre-application process, your practice can then move on to the assessment procedure. You must:
- Review the accreditation manual
- Sign the applicants deed
- Provide all required documentation
- Pay the required fee
The governing accreditation body will then assess your organisation for accreditation.
- Assessment – After your documents have been approved, your practice will undergo a systems and compliance assessment which includes an on-site evaluation, office assessment, as well as a witness assessment, among others.
- Results – If your application is not approved, you may follow procedure to appeal the decision.
- Post accreditation compliance – Your compliance will be monitored throughout the accreditation term, which would necessitate both scheduled and unscheduled surveillance visits and assessments.
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AMA Medical Products
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