Excellent health-care facilities exist around the world that can provide services in the domain of medical tourism. Since it is now easier than ever to cross national borders and receive high-quality care at international clinics and hospitals, all parties involved must be held to high standards of legal practice and clinical care. Accreditation is the best way to ensure strict external evaluation.
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An overview of medical accreditation
In general, accreditation represents a voluntary process by which institutions meet standards established by an external accrediting body. Standardization through accreditation can also be viewed as a risk reduction and quality optimization strategy. In the context of medical tourism, institutions encompass various clinics and hospitals, while the accrediting body refers to any organization recognized by the International Society for Quality (ISQua) in Health-Care-accredited organizations.
Hence, ISQua can be viewed as "the accreditor of accreditors," which accredits international accreditation organizations such as Joint Commission International, Accreditation Canada, Trent Accreditation Scheme, and Malaysian Society for Quality in Health. Their aim is the delivery of safe and high-quality health care, based on standards and processes devised and developed by health care professionals for medical services.
It is important to note that accreditation should not be based simply on paying a business registration fee, but instead on meeting, or even exceeding, transparent and well-defined standards of practice. The majority of health-related international accreditation organizations currently accredit medical clinics, hospitals, and laboratories.
On the other hand, new accreditation standards are also needed for the critical assessment of medical tourism agencies. Although their primary involvement is to arrange travel to other nations, they are also active in coordinating the provision of health services. Such coordinators, agents, or medical facilitators need recognized training that will enable them to discharge such tasks in a competent manner.
International accreditation of healthcare facilities
When establishing international networks of healthcare providers, involved medical tourism parties should be restricted to arranging health services at clinics and hospitals that have undergone international accreditation by ISQua in Health-Care-accredited organizations. As growing numbers of patients cross borders are in search of specific health care, this is becoming increasingly important.
The whole idea behind the accreditation and licensing is to offer interested parties a testament of external quality evaluation against unanimous healthcare standards. In other words, medical tourism patients are ensured of standardized healthcare practices, regardless of where in the world the facility in question is located.
Core aspects of patient care are in the focus of the international accreditation standards, and a fundamental requirement is to establish a protocol for the continuity of care, with appropriate measures in place for the discharge, referral, follow-up, and transfer of patients. The fact that accreditation standards require the medical facility to identify and evaluate the healthcare needs of the patient before admission is important.
Clinics and hospitals interested in attracting international patients should undergo an international accreditation process prior to joining the global healthcare networks. Medical tourism companies that provide care at unaccredited international healthcare facilities should have their licenses revoked.
Medical tourism, your health can now be outsourced: Krystal Rampalli at TEDxUMN
Potential problems with accreditation
One of the biggest potential problems with accreditation for medical tourism parties is the fear that the commercial aspirations and needs of the accreditation schemes may become ends in themselves. Many accreditation schemes that operate internationally are indeed private companies and corporations.
In addition, poorer countries that are usually heavily involved in providing medical tourism services may not have adequate access to the accreditation process, or engaging in it would lead them to financial hardship. Accreditation processes often do not tackle ethically contentious areas such as organ and tissue donation, organ trafficking, surrogate pregnancy, selective gender abortion, or the use of unproven therapies and operations.
Accreditation can sometimes also be used as a marketing tool by medical tourism facilitators, wealthier hospitals, or even governments of the provider countries, seeking their slice of the lucrative medical tourism business.
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