Author(s)

Fereshteh Farzianpour^1*, Keramat Nourijelyani², Hamed Zandiyan³, Telma Zahirian Moghadam^4*, Shima Zahirian Moghadam⁵

¹Department of Health Management & Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sci-ences, Tehran, Iran.
²Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
³Health Policy, Hospital Management Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁴Health Care Management, Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵Health Management and Economics Research Center, Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.

Background: In recent years various standards have been proposed for assessment and supervision of healthcare systems. One of the most popular of them in health care area is Joint Commission International (JCI) standards of US. This study has been conducted to investigate executive potentials related Accreditation Standards of Maternity and birth services of this commission in hospitals providing maternity and birth services in Ardebil Province. Methods: This is a descriptive-analytic study conducted as cross-sectional on 232 employees of three hospitals in Ardebil including Alavi, Arta and Sabalan who were randomly chosen. This is a multi-stage study that in stage 1, an accreditation tool for maternity and birth services was designed based on JCI standards. Validity and reliability of questionnaire was measured by Alpha Cronbach. In stage 2, score of different dimension of Accreditation Standards of MOS was calculated using data obtained from questionnaires distributed among a sample of 232 hospitals personnel; all of them were working in maternity and birth field. Statistical tests used are one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), dunnets post hoc and correlation test that all of them were calculated by SPSS V. 18. Results: Result showed that all of the MOS accreditation standards components were capable in selected hospitals. Arta hospital earned the highest score of standards (mean = 149/4) and Alavi hospital received the lowest score (mean = 128/04) of the maximum attainable score (186). Also, significant difference was observed between selected hospitals in total score of MOS standards (F = 50/432, p < 0/00). Conclusion: Based on study findings, there is an inequality between Ardebils hospital in field of MOS accreditation standards. Public hospitals are in more difficult situation compared to private hospitals, therefore Health Care System policy makers must pay attention systematically and specially to implementation of international standards in order to improve health care impacts in public hospitals.

Accreditation, JCI Standards, Maternity and Obstetrics Service, Selected Hospitals

Farzianpour, F. , Nourijelyani, K. , Zandiyan, H. , Moghadam, T. and Moghadam, S. (2014) Accreditation Maternity and Obstetric Services (MOS), Based on the Accreditation Standards of the Joint Commission International (JCI). Health, 6, 2453-2460. doi: 10.4236/health.2014.618282.