Study Document
Health Care -- Licensing, Accreditation and Certification A-Level Coursework
Pages:3 (870 words)
Sources:3
Subject:Health
Topic:Health Care Provider
Document Type:A-Level Coursework
Document:#88675020
Health Care -- Licensing, Accreditation and Certification -- Case Assignment King/Drew Medical Center
JCAHO accreditation is a formal "seal of approval" by an authorized organization while JCAHO certification is a "gold seal of approval" by a private arm of JCAHO given for adherence to high national standards. Both types of recognition provide numerous benefits and notable disadvantages, some of which overlap. A cautionary tale about official approval and the loss of it is provided by King/Drew Medical Center, which was eventually forced out of business. Fortunately, the underserved population of South Los Angeles County that was formerly served by King/Drew looks forward to the 2013 opening of the Martin Luther King-Harbor Hospital.
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Accreditation and Certification, Their Relative Significance, As Well As Advantages and Disadvantages
Accreditation
Accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) is a formal "seal of approval" for health care organizations meeting uniform national standards by an authorized organization. Accreditation is often deemed voluntary but is critical for certain funding and for public relations (Ornstein, 2005). The JCAHO web site outlines several advantages of accreditation, including: assisting in the organization and strengthening of safety measures for patients; enhancing the community's regard for the health care organization; improving business by providing a marketing tool for health care organizations associated with and approved by the highly regarded JCAHO; assist in continual up-to-date improvements in safety and care quality; reduce the cost of liability insurance; provide services through "Joint Commission Resources" for ongoing education and support of health care services; furnishing professional advice and education by "Joint Commission surveyors"; providing exhausting reviews tailored to a health care organization's specialties; attracting and developing high-quality staff; satisfying some requirements for Medicare/Medicaid (Medi-Cal) certification; providing a requisite qualification for insurance contracts and partnership in managed care plans and contracts; meeting some State requirements for doing business as a health care provider; providing modern tools and standards with which a health care organization can measure its performance compared to other health care organizations (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, 2012).
Certification
Certification is a "gold seal of approval" granted to a health care organization by a private organization, or a private arm of an organization -- here, JCAHO - when the health care organization adheres to rigorous uniform national standards (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, 2012). The JCAHO web site lists several benefits of certification, including: maintaining a consistent, nationally-accepted standard of care; giving a specific structure for maintaining and improving management; setting objective standards for a health care organization's assessment of its programs and structures; validation of staff skills…
Sample Source(s) Used
Deficiencies at King/Drew That Resulted In the Problems and Current Status/Prognosis for King/Drew
King/Drew was the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School, established in 1966, which joined forces with the Martin Luther King General Hospital, constructed across the street in 1972 (Calderon & Beltran, 2004). Consequently, the King/Drew Medical Center (KDMC) is deemed to have opened in 1972 (Mitchell, 2006). KDMC included a 2-year medical school and a hospital located in Willowbrook (Mitchell, 2006), south of Watts (Weber, Ornstein, & Leonard, 2007) and serving mostly poor and minority residents of Watts, Compton, Willowbrook, South Central and Lynwood in South Los Angeles (Ornstein, 2005). In its decades of existence, KDMC trained thousands of doctors, served millions of people and saved thousands of lives (Calderon & Beltran, 2004).
From its inception, KDMC endured internal and external difficulties that were crippling and eventually fatal. First, its structure was inherently weak: as a two-year medical school, its access to certain types of funding, including research funding, was automatically limited and KDMC had considerable difficulty attracting high-quality students, educators and administrators (Calderon & Beltran, 2004). Secondly, its existence as a "safety-net" hospital for poor, at-risk populations further limited its funding and forced KDMC to rely on the L.A. County Department of Health Services (LACDHS) and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) for funding and oversight, though those organizations already labor in a system with huge budget deficits (Calderon & Beltran, 2004). Third, KDMC faced critical issues due to changing demographics: in a five-mile radius of KDMC, from 1980 to 2000 the African-American population sank from 64% to 35%