The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, has launched the National Teaching Hospital Accreditation Scheme.
The programme will be run under the supervision of the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation.
At the launch yesterday, the executive director of the CCHSA, Ms Elma Heidemann, said, "Accreditation is a powerful tool to achieve the ultimate goal of excellence in quality of care. It is a means by which clients and consumers are reassured that health service authorities are open to both internal and external assessment."
The Irish Health Services Accreditation Steering Group includes representatives of the postgraduate medical colleges, medical schools, An Bord Altranais, teaching hospitals and health boards.
Accreditation is a self-assessment and peer-review process involving measurement of the performance of an organisation against a set of predetermined standards.
The objective is to encourage health agencies to concentrate on ways to improve healthcare and the delivery system.
The Minister told The Irish Times that he hoped initiatives such as this would have a positive impact on waiting lists and other matters of immediate concern to patients.
"I see this very much as a step-by-step process aimed at improving the delivery of healthcare." He added that the accreditation programme would be concentrated initially in eight major academic teaching hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Galway. However, it is intended that the scheme will be developed to allow for the inclusion of other hospitals and agencies following the satisfactory completion of the pilot phase.
A novel feature of the accreditation programme is the inclusion of the Independent Hospitals' Association of Ireland, the representative body for private hospitals.
Initially the scheme will involve the voluntary participation of health agencies. However, the Department of Health has not ruled out mandatory participation in the future.
The programme provides for areas such as clinical audit and performance, risk management and formal patient advocacy structures within the health services.
This will go some way to reassuring patients and the public that hospitals and other healthcare bodies are providing a safe, effective and quality service. A principal objective of the programme is the achievement of real and measurable change and improvement for the consumer.
It is envisaged that the first formal accreditation will take place during the last quarter of this year. The Department of Health has committed over £1 million in support of the programme.