새로운 한국의료기관평가인증제의 이해 = Understanding of the new Korea Healthcare Accreditation System

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Korean Healthcare Accreditation System began to be applied to most Korean hospitals this year, yet it remains unfamiliar to us. There has been much criticism regarding the Hos-pital Evaluation Program that began in 2004 because of its formalities and its perceived ineffec-tiveness in improving the healthcare environment. Because of these issues, the new healthcare accreditation system was adopted to continuously improve the quality of the healthcare fields. Many countries, including the United States, are employing accreditation systems and have developed their systems with consideration for their own cultural backgrounds and medical envi-ronments. Unlike the evaluation program, which ranks hospitals, the new accreditation system tries to see the root of every behavior rather than focusing on formalities like the size of and faci-lities available at hospitals. The appraiser s ability to correctly judge is very important. For the hospitals, understanding the significance of accreditation, which follows quality improvement, is most important. Besides, the accreditation system is a volunteer system, which is unfamiliar to us (we are used to a passive evaluation system) and can cause confusion. It also has a risk of falling into disuse like the past evaluation system if we try to obtain quick results from the new system. Ample time is needed to make adjustments through trial and error, and for medical pro-fessionals to discover how to properly use the new accreditation system. It is important to consi-der its meaning and principles first.