A prospective, multi-method, multi-disciplinary, multi-level, collaborative, social-organisational design for researching health sector accreditation [LP0560737].
BACKGROUND
Accreditation has become ubiquitous across the international health care landscape. Award of full accreditation status in health care is viewed, as it is in other sectors, as a valid indicator of high quality organisational performance. However, few studies have empirically demonstrated this assertion. The value of accreditation, therefore, remains uncertain, and this persists as a central legitimacy problem for accreditation providers, policymakers and researchers. The question arises as to how best to research the validity, impact and value of accreditation processes in health care. Most health care organisations participate in some sort of accreditation process and thus it is not possible to study its merits using a randomised controlled strategy. Further, tools and processes for accreditation and organisational performance are multifaceted.


METHODS
To understand the relationship between them a multi-method research approach is required which incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data. The generic nature of accreditation standard development and inspection within different sectors enhances the extent to which the findings of in-depth study of accreditation process in one industry can be generalised to other industries. This paper presents a research design which comprises a prospective, multi-method, multi-level, multi-disciplinary approach to assess the validity, impact and value of accreditation.


CONCLUSIONS
The accreditation program which assesses over 1,000 health services in Australia is used as an exemplar for testing this design. The paper proposes this design as a framework suitable for application to future international research into accreditation. Our aim is to stimulate debate on the role of accreditation and how to research it.
Braithwaite
Jeffrey
J
Centre for Clinical Governance Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, 10 Arthur St., Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia. j.braithwaite@unsw.edu.au
Westbrook
Johanna
J
Pawsey
Marjorie
M
Greenfield
David
D
Naylor
Justine
J
Iedema
Rick
R
Runciman
Bill
B
Redman
Sally
S
Jorm
Christine
C
Robinson
Maureen
M
Nathan
Sally
S
Gibberd
Robert
R
D000068:Accreditation / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*; D001315:Australia; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry / Q000592:standards; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D017146:Models, Organizational; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D036301:Qualitative Research