Saturday, February 7, 2015

The Benefits A Clinic Miss For Not Having The UHMS Accreditation

By Janine Hughes


Every new of the freestanding hyperbaric clinic has one primary goal; this is to be Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) accredited. It is not very easy as it requires heavy investment in quality medical equipment and quality staff. However, it has benefits that can completely transform the future of the hospital, putting it in a new level of playing field. It is the way to attract referrals from medical practitioners and to assure the regulators and the insurers that you meet the highest standards in the health care practice. The UHMS accreditation is not imposed on any medical facility, it is a voluntary program that offers a guarantee to other parties that the hyperbaric oxygen therapy provided in the clinic meets the rigorous industry standards, the clinic practice evidence based medicine, and that the facility provides high patient satisfaction with high ratings.

By definition, the accreditation is simply to ascertain that the hyperbaric oxygen therapy that the clinic offers if of industry standards. It also means that this clinic scores highly in patient satisfaction rate and practices evidence based medicine. This however does not come easy. There are stringent requirements set by the body that the facility has to meet to be accredited.

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.

Good consultants should provide insight into the scope, time, and the resources necessary for the center to improve from its current status to the level that meets the survey requirements.

Ideally, there are a number of benefits that come from using a third party to guide the facility before the UHMS team come for the survey. They give a detailed report with the guideline of what should be done and when. This detailed interrelationship between the tasks to be completed and the resources necessary for the same ensures that the clinic is able to meet the standards on the right time without wastage of resources. In some instances, the consultants also help in the actual performance of some of the tasks.

The specific areas to be surveyed include general administration, the operations, construction, and facility maintenance. The chamber is also inspected on the basis of fabrication, ventilation, fire protection, and electrical system. For patients, the issues like patients' rights, assessment, care, and education are also considered. The other areas are medical staff, the human resources, infection control, medical gas system, clinical research, teaching and publication, leadership, information management, professional improvement, and the environmental care.

If a facility is UHMS accredited, then this is a proof that it has been examined by a third party that is non-biased and has been found to be at par with the hospital environmental standards. In addition to this, it is a statement that the medical facility is run by a very competent medical team managing health providers that meet the required qualification. It is the best assurance the regulators and the insurance companies can get certified that the facility offers quality patient care and with high standards of safety.

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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