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Waikato DHB Withdraws from Accreditation
Media Release
29 March 2007
Waikato DHB Withdraws from Accreditation
Waikato District Health Board has decided to withdraw from its Quality Health New Zealand membership.
Accreditation and certification surveys scheduled for April 30–May 4 at Waikato and Thames hospitals will go ahead as certification is a legal requirement and is not affected by the decision to withdraw from accreditation.
All Waikato DHB services currently Quality Health accredited will cease to be accredited when the DHB’s current agreement with Quality Health expires on June 30.
Board chief executive Malcolm Stamp today said the board believed the duplication of standards and reporting processes wasted scarce resources.
Accreditation for district health boards is optional and was introduced by Health Waikato more than 10 years ago to provide a quality framework for provision of services at a time when no national quality framework existed.
When certification was introduced as a legal requirement in all New Zealand hospitals three years ago, a new set of certification standards was put in place.
These largely duplicated the Quality Health standards, said Mr Stamp.
“Having now had three years of maintaining both certification and accreditation the board believes there is not enough additional value from having its services remain Quality Health accredited.
“Recommendations arising from recent accreditation surveys have not been significantly different from those arising from the certification audits.
“Therefore accreditation cannot be seen to be promoting a significantly more robust quality improvement framework than the certification framework,” said Mr Stamp.
“Quality Health has provided a good service over the years but in the new certification environment it is no longer tenable to retain both systems.”
There would be no reduction in healthcare standards provided to patients while all Waikato DHB’s clinical services would have some form of external audit.
“We remain committed to implementing continuous quality improvement and no changes will occur to current quality systems. We have decided that all clinical services – both hospital and community – will have some form of external audit to a set of standards which assess the quality of services provided to patients.”
Mr Stamp said the DHB would reconsider its options for external audit and identify alternative mechanisms to assist it to move to new levels of excellence across all of its services – both clinical and non-clinical.”
Quality Health NZ is the trading name of the New Zealand Council on Healthcare Standards, New Zealand’s national accreditation body for hospitals and other health and disability services. Quality Health has been designated as an auditing agency by the Ministry of Health under the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act 2001.
Quality Health was established by the health sector to help improve the standards and performance of health and disability services. Clients include district health boards, hospitals, rest homes, mental health services, community and home care services, hospices, disability services, primary care services, Maori health providers and health non-profit organisations.
ENDS
Waikato DHB Media Briefing
Waikato District Health Board has decided to withdraw from the Quality Health New Zealand (QHNZ) Accreditation Programme as from 1 July 2007.
Background
* QHNZ Accreditation is optional, and
was introduced over 10 years ago by Health Waikato to
provide a quality framework for provision of services at a
time when no national quality framework existed.
* Currently, all Waikato DHB hospitals and community health teams are QHNZ accredited, excluding Mental Health Services which comply with the certification standards specific to Mental Health.
* Compliance with certification standards is mandatory and has applied to all hospital inpatient services since October 2004. In addition the DHB must be audited against many other standards e.g. cervical screening and breast screening national programmes, Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, IANZ for laboratories, Physiotherapy services etc.
Reasons for this decision:
* Duplication
of accreditation and certification standards, audit process
and reporting.
* Accreditation is awarded for 3 years,
whereas certification may be awarded for 1-, 2- or 3-years
with the potential for the audit programme to be out of
synchronisation, resulting in additional audit costs.
*
Audit recommendations over the past 3 years have not been
significantly different between accreditation and
certification therefore little added value has been gained
from accreditation.
Comments:
* Accreditation in other
countries e.g. Canada, Ireland, Australia operates in an
environment where there is no comprehensive national
certification process like NZ’s.
* The DHB acknowledges
that QHNZ has provided a good service over the years, but
that in the new certification environment it is no longer
tenable to retain both.
Future:
* Waikato DHB remains
strongly committed to implementing continuous quality
improvement and no changes will occur to current quality
systems.
* Removal of QHNZ accreditation will not reduce the standards of healthcare provided to patients – all of the DHB’s clinical services will have some form of external audit.
* Waikato and Thames Hospitals will go ahead with the scheduled audits for certification and accreditation in early May and will receive reports relating to both sets of standards in the usual way. However, accreditation status of all currently QHNZ accredited services will cease as from 1 July.
* The DHB will consider adoption of other external standards which may provide added value to the DHB.
Waikato District Health Board
Healthy People. Excellent Care
Waikato District Health Board (DHB) employs over 6500 people and plans, funds and provides hospital and health services to more than 391,770 people in a region covering eight per cent of New Zealand.
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