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BMC Health Services Research
Published in: BMC Health Services Research 1/2006

Open Access 01-12-2006 | Study protocol

A prospective, multi-method, multi-disciplinary, multi-level, collaborative, social-organisational design for researching health sector accreditation [LP0560737]

Authors: Jeffrey Braithwaite, Johanna Westbrook, Marjorie Pawsey, David Greenfield, Justine Naylor, Rick Iedema, Bill Runciman, Sally Redman, Christine Jorm, Maureen Robinson, Sally Nathan, Robert Gibberd

Published in: BMC Health Services Research | Issue 1/2006

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Abstract

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/design

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.

Discussion

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.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
A prospective, multi-method, multi-disciplinary, multi-level, collaborative, social-organisational design for researching health sector accreditation [LP0560737]
Authors
Jeffrey Braithwaite
Johanna Westbrook
Marjorie Pawsey
David Greenfield
Justine Naylor
Rick Iedema
Bill Runciman
Sally Redman
Christine Jorm
Maureen Robinson
Sally Nathan
Robert Gibberd
Publication date
01-12-2006
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Health Services Research / Issue 1/2006
Electronic ISSN: 1472-6963
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-6-113

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