We are pleased to announce the next action briefs in the series of action briefs on health care accreditation by the WHO come from the Diagnostic Accreditation Program (DAP) of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, Canada.
The action briefs published by the WHO outline how healthcare accreditation is being used to address quality of care within the context of health services strengthening in different countries around the globe.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia (the College) regulates the practice of medicine under the authority of law in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The Diagnostic Accreditation Program (DAP) has the mandate and authority, derived from the College Bylaws, under the Health Professions Act, that every diagnostic facility must be accredited before it can render a diagnostic service. This includes both public and private facilities regardless of the source of funding (public or private pay). The DAP includes programmes for accreditation of diagnostic imaging, pulmonary function, polysomnography, neurodiagnostic and laboratory medicine, including point-of-care testing. The DAP assists providers to evaluate and improve the quality of services they provide to their patients and clients. Accreditation also provides recognition that a service is meeting the standards of quality required in the province of British Columbia.
The DAP action briefs outline the role that accreditation played in the COVID-19 pandemic through managing the quality of point-of-care COVID-19 testing and highlight how accreditation was used to introduce quality to a previously unregulated area of health care (home sleep apnea testing), the challenges encountered in such a process and how they responded to these.
