Journal of

Background and Aim: Accountability is a process by which all service organizations including hospitals are required to legitimize their activities. This research aims to study the seven aspects of accountability in Iran's teaching hospitals.

Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional analytic study performed in the second half of 1390 in five major medical-educational hospitals in 5 points of the country. A research-made questionnaire with seven dimensions (ethical, cultural, financial, operational, legal, informational, and structural) was used. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: The total number of subjects was 454, of whom 45.6% were males and the rest were females (n = 247). They were mostly (40.1%) in the age group of 21- to 29-year-olds, and the least figure (6.8%) pertained to those older than 50 years of age. The average mean of structure turned out to be the highest (3.54 ± 0.97) and the informational dimension had the lowest (3.45 ± 0.97). The average accountability score was the highest in Rasht hospital (99.3 ± 0.61) and the lowest in Tehran hospital (3.02 ± 0.67). The correlations between all dimensions were confirmed. Moreover, accountability as evaluated in the studied educational hospitals was above average.

Conclusion: Patients' attitude towards accountability in Iran's teaching hospitals was assessed to be above average. The findings show that an office or a unit for accountability, validation, and continuous audit of its dimensions is essential to advance the high goals of the hospitals.

Background and Aim: Tele pathology is one of the medical subdivisions that has opened a new approach in the telepathology, e specially to organize consultations. In this research, feasibility of Telepathology implementation in teaching hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Science was studied.

Materials and Methods: This study was a cross-sectional and descriptive study. The study population was included 8 hospitals directors and administrator, 20 pathologists, and 8 informatics staffs, in four teaching hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. A researcher constructed questionnaire was used for data collection . The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by expert panel and using by Test – retest method confirmed its reliability. The data was collected and analyzed by SPSS software to prepare descriptive findings.

Results: The R esults showed that 65.6% of hospitals had hardware facilities . Procedures based on legal issues related to information security and privacy was 95.71%, while t here was no guideline for telemedicine and telepathology.

Conclusion: I t could be concluded that in line with considrating the importance and benefits of telepathology, it is necessary to provide software requirements and hardware infrastructure. It should be noted that available properties also must be improved in terms of implementation of telepathology. Also, rules to support patients’ and staff’s rights should be developed for better implementation of such new technologies

Background and Aim: To improve the implementation of clinical governance (CG) in Iran's hospitals, awareness of various aspects of its implementation and assessment is important. The aim of this study was to find out the obstacles and challenges of clinical governance implementation and assessment in Qazvin teaching hospitals. Materials and Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 17 senior managers, clinical staff and clinical governance experts were conducted in six hospitals of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences (QUMS). To analyze the collected data, framework analysis was used. Results: The challenges and obstacles of CG implementation in Qazvin teaching hospitals were explained using three themes of (1) challenges of CG implementation, (2) improvement in seven dimensions of CG, and (3) challenges of CG implementation assessment. Conclusion: The results of this study show that CG implementation needs to address three issues: improving clinical staff awareness about CG, changing organizational culture so as to make it more receptive to CG, and creating higher levels of cooperation among physicians, managers, patients, specialists, and professionals. The supportive role of top management in addressing the three issues and in providing resources and other infrastructures is obviously essent