Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Benefits A Clinic Miss For Not Having The UHMS Accreditation

By Janine Hughes


The primary goal for the freestanding hyperbaric clinic should be to attain the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) accreditation. This is for obvious reasons; it is the way to stay in business for long. It assures other players that services offered by the facility are beyond reproach. Although it requires heavy investment to attain quality in all aspects, the benefits that follow are immense. The referrals from physicians and other medical practitioners increase while the medical insurers trust the institution with their clients are willing to reimburse any expenses without too much negotiation. Normally, the UHMS accreditation is voluntary; however, the process of attaining it is rigorous.

The accreditation processes is not very easy; the facilities have to meet stringent standards set by the body, and provide data to prove their conformity with the set requirements. The data to be provided focuses on policies and procedure, hyperbaric medicine quality offered, and patient safety and outcomes.

In order to ascertain this, the health care facility has to be surveyed by a team from the UHMS. In addition to above data, they have to gather data on training processes, the equipment operation and maintenance, and the safety standards in place.

Since the standards are so high, it is often advisable that the medical facility seeks services from expert consults to assess the extent to which their current establishment and procedures conform to the said standards. The consultants should offer insight in regards to scope, the resources, and time required for conformity. The consultant should also offer assistance in helping the facility conform by steering the processes required by the institution.

A third party consultant also comes with several other benefits. The consultant comes up with a detailed report stating the tasks and timing for the same. In addition to this, the report gives the relationship between one task to the other, and which should come first and second. As such, a clear picture of what is to be done, and the resources required for the same are clear for the party. The consultant may also offer assistance in performing some of the tasks.

Normally, the team from the UHMS conducts a survey in very wide areas within the facility. The areas of focus include fire protection, ventilation, fabrication, and the electrical installation of the chamber. For the patients, the issues to be examined include the patient rights, care, assessment, and education. In addition to this, the human resource, leadership, professional development, teaching, research and publication, information management, medical gas system, and environmental sustenance are also surveyed.

For human resources, the data in regards to professional development, qualification, training, leadership and the numbers are considered. Other areas include research and development, teaching, publication, information management, and environmental sustainability.

This in essence means more referrals to the facility as physicians are confident with the quality of health provision from this institution. The insurers will also be willing to reimburse the clinic that is accredited and more qualified health providers get attracted by the hospital. It translates to higher income.




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