Accreditation standards of health institutions in Oman reviewed at meeting

Muscat: The Ministry of Health (MOH), represented by the Directorate General of Quality Assurance Center (DGQAC), convened a meeting with the National Committee of Formulating the Health Institutions Accreditation Standards and Follow-up of Implementation, formed by the Ministerial Decision No. 139/ 2016 at the Ministry’s headquarters.
The meeting, which aimed to review what has been achieved in the standardisation project of accreditation of the health institutions, was chaired by Dr Sultan bin Ya’arub Al Busaidi, MOH Advisor for Health Affairs.
Dr Qamra Al Sariri, DGQAC Director-General gave an overview of the project, and the recommendations of the visit of the Jordanian Healthcare Accreditation Council.
Based on the committee’s vision, which is based on four basic aspects of the project namely the formulation of standards, training the auditors, funding the project and forming an administrative system for the project, the standards have been formulated and reviewed by an expert.
The standards included nine chapters namely governance and leadership, human resources management, facilities and safety management, information management system, quality and risk management, health care, patient rights and education, drugs and safety management and infection prevention and control.
These standards are being prepared for empirical implementation in one of the hospitals both in the government and private sectors in order to involve the health workers and all the concerned to feedback these standards. In addition, training national certified auditors to carry out the necessary tasks to accredit the health institutions in the Sultanate will be in focus during the next phases of the project.