Business View - July 2015 27
NICKLIN:
Our reach extends across the continuum of
care, from acute care, long-term care, rehabilitation,
home care through to hospice-palliative care. Ap-
proximately 1,200 health care organizations located
on nearly 6,000 sites across Canada participate in
our accreditation program. For example, if you look at
health care in Newfoundland, they have four regions
and each region may have greater than 30 sites.
BUSINESS VIEW: Do you have what you consider a
typical member? If so, what is the main reason that
they have for joining and being involved?
NICKLIN:
All of the hospitals in Canada do participate,
a majority of long-term care facilities, an increasing
number of home care community partners, rehabilita-
tion centres, and so on. Accreditation of health ser-
vices, which began in acute care and long-term care,
started to expand beyond that in the ’80s and gradu-
ally move across the continuum. I should also mention
that we don’t refer to the participating health care or-
ganizations as members – we refer to them as clients
or client health care organizations.
Why do they participate? It’s a commitment to improv-
ing the quality of care and decreasing risk. Accredita-
tion is not an audit and I think it’s important to say that
it’s not ‘check, check, check, you’ve got this in place’
but rather, it’s about ongoing quality improvement.
An increasing number of private health care organi-
zations – long-term care homes, surgery centres and
diagnostic imaging labs – participate because they be-
lieve it’s the right thing to do. Participation in accredi-
tation demonstrates an organization’s accountability
HEALTHCARE
