Urgent problems and solution strategies in 2nd cycle of long-term care hospital accreditation

요양병원 인증 2주기 당면과제 및 해결방안

The Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) accreditation system was initiated in 2013 in the form of mandatory accreditation system in order to improve patient safety and the quality of medical service at LTCHs. By June 2016, the accredited LTCHs were 76.2%. This research was conducted to review the implementation process in the first cycle and to promote development of the second cycle of LTCH accreditation system. There are some changes which reinforced the accreditation standards, accreditation survey, and public access to accreditation results in order to strengthen patient safety in the first cycle LTCH accreditation system. LTCHs which participated in the accreditation system achieved certain outcomes in respect to patient safety and employee satisfaction. However, there are several urgent problems in placement criteria of night duty health care providers, reinforcement plans in the accreditation system, and incentives for accredited hospitals. In order to solve these problems, the most important thing is to clearly recognize the fact that the healthcare accreditation system is not the means for control and regulate hospitals but a system to induce hospitals to continue to strive for improvements in patient safety and medical service quality. In addition, it is required that LTCHs, accrediting agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare compromise and cooperate to seek solutions every time issues related to the accreditation system arise.