International approaches for implementing accreditation programmes in different healthcare facilities: a comparative case study in Australia, Botswana, Denmark, and Jordan.

Healthcare accreditation programmes have been adopted internationally to maintain the quality and safety of services. Accreditation assesses the compliance of organizations to a series of standards. The evidence base supporting the benefits of accreditation is mixed, potentially influenced by differences in local implementation and operationalization of standards.

Accreditation in 2030.

With the rapid acceleration of changes being experienced throughout the world and in particular within health and health and social care, accreditation programmes must keep pace or go the way of the dinosaur. While accreditation has deep roots in some countries, in the past 30 years, it has spread to a considerably larger range of countries in a mix of mandatory and voluntary systems. Accreditation is a tool to improve the quality of healthcare and social care, and in particular, there is recent recognition of its value in low- and middle-income countries, with promotion by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Promoting patients' rights through hospital accreditation.

Legislation and accreditation standards both address patients' rights. The two approaches differ in important ways; they should not be seen as competing but as complementing efforts. Laws define minimum standards, whereas accreditation standards describe optimal performance; laws focus on the rights, whereas accreditation standards also point out ways in which hospitals may act to deliver these rights, which both serves to help hospitals implementing the rights and to standardize the measures taken across hospitals.

[Potentially preventable deaths in a medium sized community hospital].

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to estimate the occurrence and causes of potentially preventable deaths at a medium sized community hospital.

Materials And Methods: A review of a consecutive series of records of 48 deceased patients (age 58-98 years, median 81 years, 40% males) was conducted by four observers, followed by a consensus conference in which the deaths were classified as potentially preventable according to a checklist, focusing on the occurrence of adverse events or failure to comply with evidence-based procedures.

Results: 10 of the 48 deaths were considered potentially preventable; in two cases the potential was considered significant, but the age and underlying diseases of the patients suggest that the potential number of saved life years is modest.

Physical training during intrahepatic chemotherapy.

Objective: To evaluate the role of strength and endurance training for the muscular, cardiac, respiratory, and immune systems and the quality of life (QOL) during intrahepatic chemotherapy (folinic acid, 5-fluorouracil).

Design: Single case.

Setting: Teaching hospital in Germany.