Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program

Last updated

The Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP) is a not-for-profit organization meant to help healthcare organizations maintain their standards in patient care and comply with regulations and the healthcare environment. [1] Headquartered in Chicago, HFAP is an accreditation organization with authority from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. [1]

Contents

HFAP provides accreditation programs for hospitals, clinical laboratories, ambulatory surgical centers, office based surgery, and critical access hospitals. HFAP also accredits mental health and physical rehabilitation facilities and provides certification for primary stroke centers. [2] HFAP was founded in 1943 by the American Osteopathic Association, [3] a medical organization representing osteopathic physicians.

History

HFAP was established in 1943 by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), and began surveying hospitals in 1945. [3] Initially, HFAP provided osteopathic hospitals with accreditation ensuring osteopathic residents received appropriate training. In the mid-1960s the United States Congress decided that accredited hospitals would meet conditions set for participation, and thus automatically participated in newly established Medicare and Medicaid programs. HFAP quickly applied for and was granted said status [4] in 1965. [5] By 2012, HFAP accredited about 214 hospitals in the US. [5] In 2015, ownership of HFAP moved from the AOA to the Accreditation Association for Hospitals/Health Systems (AAHHS). [6]

Related Research Articles

The Joint Commission is a United States-based nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c) organization that accredits more than 22,000 US health care organizations and programs. The international branch accredits medical services from around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holy Cross Hospital (Chicago)</span> Hospital in Illinois, United States

Holy Cross Hospital is a 160-bed general medical Roman Catholic hospital located in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood of South Side, Chicago, Illinois, at 68th Street and California Avenue. It is part of the Sinai Chicago hospital system.

Outpatient surgery, also known as ambulatory surgery, day surgery, day case surgery, or same-day surgery, is surgery that does not require an overnight hospital stay. The term “outpatient” arises from the fact that surgery patients may enter and leave the facility on the same day. The advantages of outpatient surgery over inpatient surgery include greater convenience and reduced costs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Osteopathic Association</span> American professional association

The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) is the representative member organization for the more than 176,000 osteopathic medical doctors (D.O.s) and osteopathic medical students in the United States. The AOA is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and is involved in post-graduate training for osteopathic physicians. Beginning in 2015, it began accrediting post-graduate education as a committee within the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, creating a unified accreditation system for all DOs and MDs in the United States. The organization promotes public health, encourages academic scientific research, serves as the primary certifying body for D.O.s overseeing 18 certifying boards, and is the accrediting agency for osteopathic medical schools through its Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation. As of October 2015, the AOA no longer owns the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP), which accredited hospitals and other health care facilities.

Chino Valley Medical Center (CVMC) is a 126-bed acute care facility in Chino, California. CVMC is owned and operated by Prime Healthcare Services, Inc. (PHS), a hospital management company in Ontario, California. PHS was founded in 2001 by Prem Reddy, who acts as its present chairman of the board. The emergency department at Chino Valley receives about 37,000 visits each year. The hospital is accredited by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP).

Hospital accreditation has been defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve”. Critically, accreditation is not just about standard-setting: there are analytical, counseling and self-improvement dimensions to the process. There are parallel issues in evidence-based medicine, quality assurance and medical ethics, and the reduction of medical error is a key role of the accreditation process. Hospital accreditation is therefore one component in the maintenance of patient safety. However, there is limited and contested evidence supporting the effectiveness of accreditation programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rocky Vista University</span> American medical school

Rocky Vista University (RVU) is a private, for-profit medical school with campus locations in Englewood, Colorado, Ivins, Utah, and Billings, Montana. The school opened in 2006 as the only modern for-profit medical school in the United States although other for-profit schools have since opened. RVU's College of Osteopathic Medicine (RVUCOM) grants the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree and admitted its inaugural class of medical students at the Parker, Colorado campus in August 2008.

The Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP) is a national, independent, U.S. not-for-profit accrediting body for community-based health care organizations. CHAP is the oldest national, community-based accrediting body with more than 9,000 agencies currently accredited nationwide.

The Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) is a United States non-profit health care accrediting organization. It represents an alternative to the Joint Commission and CHAP, The Community Health Accreditation Program.

The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), founded in 1979, is an American organization which accredits ambulatory health care organizations, including ambulatory surgery centers, office-based surgery centers, endoscopy centers, and college student health centers, as well as health plans, such as health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations. AAAHC has been granted "deemed status" to certify ambulatory surgery centers for Medicare by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In 2009, the AAAHC added the Medical home to the types of organizations that it accredits. It offers on-site surveys for organizations seeking Medical Home accreditation or certification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rural health clinic</span>

A rural health clinic (RHC) is a clinic located in a rural, medically under-served area in the United States that has a separate reimbursement structure from the standard medical office under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. RHCs were established by the Rural Health Clinic Services Act of 1977, . The RHC program increases access to health care in rural areas by

  1. creating special reimbursement mechanisms that allow clinicians to practice in rural, under-served areas
  2. increasing utilization of physician assistants (PA) and nurse practitioners (NP)
<span class="mw-page-title-main">OhioHealth Doctors Hospital</span> Hospital in Ohio, United States

OhioHealth Doctors Hospital is a 213-bed tertiary care teaching hospital located in Columbus in the U.S. state of Ohio. Doctors Hospital operates the second largest osteopathic medical training program in the United States. Each year, the hospital trains 160 physicians in residencies and fellowships.

An accountable care organization (ACO) is a healthcare organization that ties provider reimbursements to quality metrics and reductions in the cost of care. ACOs in the United States are formed from a group of coordinated health-care practitioners. They use alternative payment models, normally, capitation. The organization is accountable to patients and third-party payers for the quality, appropriateness and efficiency of the health care provided. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an ACO is "an organization of health care practitioners that agrees to be accountable for the quality, cost, and overall care of Medicare beneficiaries who are enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program who are assigned to it".

A.T. Still University - School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA) is a private medical school in Mesa, Arizona. It was established in 2007 as the Arizona campus of A.T. Still University. A.T. Still University (ATSU) is the original founding institution of osteopathic healthcare, established in 1892 by Andrew Taylor Still in Kirksville, Missouri.

College Medical Center, is a community-based teaching hospital located in Long Beach, California. It is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. It was purchased by Santa Fe Springs-based healthcare management company College Health Enterprises Inc., in October 2013 and renamed College Medical Center. This purchase joined the hospital with College Hospital Cerritos and College Hospital Costa Mesa as affiliates of College Health Enterprises.

Health care quality is a level of value provided by any health care resource, as determined by some measurement. As with quality in other fields, it is an assessment of whether something is good enough and whether it is suitable for its purpose. The goal of health care is to provide medical resources of high quality to all who need them; that is, to ensure good quality of life, cure illnesses when possible, to extend life expectancy, and so on. Researchers use a variety of quality measures to attempt to determine health care quality, including counts of a therapy's reduction or lessening of diseases identified by medical diagnosis, a decrease in the number of risk factors which people have following preventive care, or a survey of health indicators in a population who are accessing certain kinds of care.

Credentialing is the process of establishing the qualifications of licensed medical professionals and assessing their background and legitimacy.

Deemed status is a hospital accreditation for hospitals in the United States.

References

  1. 1 2 "NAMSS, Synergy, The Big Three: A Side by Side Matrix Comparing Hospital Accrediting Agencies" (PDF).
  2. "HFAP Mission". Hfap.org. Retrieved 2012-11-16.
  3. 1 2 "Accreditation". American Osteopathic Association. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  4. "NAMSS, Synergy, The Quiet Accreditor, May/June 2007".
  5. 1 2 Kenney, Lynn. "Hospital accrediting organizations offer different approaches to the survey process". American Society for Healthcare Engineering of the American Hospital Association. Archived from the original on 2015-04-29. Retrieved 2014-08-18.
  6. "Longtime accrediting organization to keep its name, continue to expand". HC Pro. Simplify Compliance. Archived from the original on April 9, 2019. Retrieved June 1, 2018.

Further reading