Abstract
Accreditation of healthcare organizations is thorough evaluation process performed by an external accrediting body that assesses the quality of systems and processes in healthcare organizations. There are numbers of accrediting organizations or bodies worldwide. In 2006, the ministry of health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established the national healthcare accrediting body and coined the name of the Central Board of Accrediting Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI). In 2016, CBAHI implemented a thorough public safety program, including 20 standards that are enforced on all public and private sectors no matter what the accreditation status is, and referred to as the Essential Safety Requirements (ESR). Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) chapter of standards covers a plethora of issues, such as Infection control program, staff education, use of personal protective equipment, hand sanitation, sharps disinfection etc. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of improvement of the ESR infection and prevention control (IPC) standards improvement in all Saudi hospitals after the first three years of implementing CBAHI's ESR. The study aims to find out with primary source data if accreditation improved infection control in hospitals and the correlation between the ownership, bed size/capacity.
Our findings show that the quality of Infection control structures, processes, and outcomes improved with time after implementing and applying the ESR CBAHI standards. The quality of infection control programs is slightly better in private hospitals versus the private and public sector. There was a weak association between the hospital size and the quality of application of infection control standards.