HAP ensures health care units are able to integrate and correlate their services by implementing effective management and communication strategies. This helps to improve the health care services and facilities database in their organizational culture, because future reference and auditing services can easily be done helping the health care delivery system to improve its standards thus provide quality health care.
The escalating prices of health care are regulated as the accreditation programs help to reduce the cost of health care while increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care delivery systems as per the demands of the patients (Craven, Corrigan & Hirnle 2006). SOPIHA provides opportunities for continued education and health care training on appropriate strategies of health care delivery systems, health care maintenance, health care management and communication to the health care practitioners.
They also promote the built up of public trust to the health care units as the quality of health care is improved and the risks arising from the injury of patients and health care practitioners are minimized, because of the effective risk management strategies stipulated in the policies of health care accreditation (Kohn et al. 2003). Not only do these programs improve health services and facilities but also enhance the cohesion, cooperation and team work within the facilities by evaluating the hospitals policies to develop them in accordance to the stipulated standards of treatment and management procedures (Kongstvedt 2001).
The programs also help different health facilities to network and in the process adopt the strategies that govern each health unit; this places health care delivery system in a better place, as health care facilities create a good public image from their good reputation which is advocated by other health care facilities, patients or accreditation organizations.
Health care units under the scrutiny of SOPIHA also have the advantage of being certified thus eliminates the hassles and hurdles caused by regulatory inspections enabling the facilities to concentrate more on provision of quality health care (Kohn et al. 2003). However, the ability of such programs is sometimes questionable as the numbers of these programs is increasingly rising creating another discipline of business as some are set up to fulfil their desires, but not to cater for the improvement of the quality of health care standards provided by the health care units they evaluate and certify.
This is because the cost of participation of such organization is high as they provide financial support and pay for all the expenses incurred in the provision of their services, such as training, to the hospital facilities (Nicholas 2003). The programs have a tendency of misusing the performance data they collect from their evaluation tasks resulting to nosedive in the morale of health care practitioners, thus reducing the competence of services providing resulting to the damage of the reputation of the health care facility and the health care practitioners (Kongstvedt 2001).
Policies that regulate sentinel events do not fully cater for benefits of the hospital facilities as the hospital is not accorded state protection in case of discovery of such cases stipulated in confidential documents provided by the accreditation organizations, such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). They also damage the reputation of the hospitals if sentinel cases are not reported to them by not certifying the facilities (Kohn et al. 2003).
To effectively improve the role played by accreditation programs and organizations the evaluation of such programs and organizations should be made public to help improve the trust and confidence-building initiative of accreditation. The government and private bodies should work hand in hand to support each other in the formulation of efficient accreditation standards that enables the certification of the health facilities thus reducing the cost of participation.
Word Count: 1220 List of references Craven, F. R. , Corrigan, J. & Hirnle, J. C. (2006), Fundamentals of nursing: human health and function (5th edition), Hagerstown, Maryland: Lippincott Wiliams and Wilkins. Hall, T. R. (2000), An introduction to healthcare organizational ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kohn, T. L. , Corrigan, J. , Molla, S. D. & Institute of Medicine (U. S. ) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America (2000), To err is human: building a safer health system, Washington DC: National Academic Press. Kongstvedt, R. P. (2001).
The managed health care handbook (4th edition), Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett publisher. Nicholas, H. J. (2003), Point-of-care testing: performance improvement and evidence-based outcomes, NY: Informa Health Care.