F Akbari Haghighi, E Jaafari Pooyan,
Volume 8, Issue 3 (2-2010)
Abstract
Background: Various studies have highlighted the importance of accreditation as a ubiquitous performance measurement system of hospitals. However, the effectiveness of this mechanism has not been addressed, as much it deserves, in developing countries. Therefore, current study intends to investigate the performance of the system using the SERVQUAL model.
Material and Methods: This research is an applied and cross-sectional survey. Decision-making Board of Hamedan Hospitals (N= 200) constitutes the target group. A self-administered questionnaire including both structured and open-ended questions has been used for data collection. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data was conducted using SPSS and Thematic Content Analysis (TCA), respectively.
Results: Only 39 percent of the target group had high awareness of current accreditation programme.
The highest rate of gap, 55.8%, between the group's perceptions and expectations from accreditation system, belonged to the indicator of staff's satisfaction and the lowest rate, 17.3%, to structures and establishments.
Conclusion: The low score of the target group's perceptions towards the accreditation programme could be a sign of the low degree of their satisfaction, which might result in their poor cooperation. More and effective attention to hospital managers' views, recommendations and reactions might be an appropriate preventive solution.
