What are the impacts of health sector accreditation?

Accreditation can provide an indication of the quality of organisational performance. Despite the substantial costs, many health care organisations participate in some form of accreditation process. However, the evidence base for accreditation is incomplete.

Key messages

• The most consistent benefits of accreditation were the promotion of institutional change and professional development
• Only very low-quality evidence was available, mostly from high-income countries
• Inconsistent findings or incomplete evidence were identified in the attitudes of professionals to accreditation, the organisational impact of accreditation, its financial impact, quality measures as clinical performance measures , programme assessment, accreditation impacts on consumer views or patient-satisfaction ratings, the effect of public accreditation disclosure, and surveyor-related issues in accreditation processes
• Decisions about implementing health sector accreditation must be guided by pragmatic factors such as institutional circumstances or needs, feasibility and the associated costs of accreditation programmes.