Making Advances in Healthcare Accreditation
As a leading provider of accreditation and certification software to the healthcare community it is essential that we continue to innovate our healthcare accreditation management software product, ARMATURE Fabric. The more we can do to help healthcare accreditation bodies work more effectively and efficiently, the more time they will have to focus on improving their operations and growing their business.
Today, healthcare accreditors use our software to manage the entire process of accreditation. This typically includes collecting accreditation applications, initiating self-studies and self-assessments, scheduling and managing site visits, conducting reviews, facilitating committee meetings and decisions, through to managing annual reporting and re-accreditation. Examples of the types of healthcare use cases we support include hospital accreditation, pharmacy practice accreditation, oncology practice accreditation, laboratory accreditation, tissue bank accreditation, medical imaging accreditation, veterinary practice accreditation, as well as programmatic accreditation in healthcare education and continuing medical education.
Each year we receive new requests from customers as they work through their accreditation cycles to add new features and functionality to make things easier. Our most recent feature, board voting, is a great example. Several of our customers use a balloting process when deciding whether or not to accredit a new organization. During this process, a committee will have access to relevant accreditation materials and data captured during the accreditation process. Once they have reviewed this data, and the associated artifacts, an event can be established to enable them to cast their vote.
Board Voting/Balloting (Event Management)
This feature is enabled within our event management module. This module allows an authorized member of staff to set up an event, such as a board or committee meeting, invite applicable members, set an agenda and location, conduct a ballot or voting process, and upload documentation. Details of current, future, and past events can be accessed by authorized users at any time. The screenshot below will give you a sense of the features available in the events module.
Figure 1. ARMATURE Fabric event management module
Our balloting feature is available within the events module and enables board members to cast their vote on accreditation outcomes.
Figure 2. Committee members can cast a vote on whether or not to accredit a given program or organization
As part of the voting process, committee members can add notes to clarify the reasons for their decision. Once accreditation staff have reviewed all the votes, a final recommendation is made and can be automatically recorded in the system.
Figure 3. Committee members can add comments for review as part of the voting process
While there are custom applications on the market that enable board voting to take place, the feedback from our customers is that having the process enabled directly within the healthcare accreditation software creates an easy to access audit trail that ties all accreditation data together from initial application through to voting and final decision.
Continuing Professional Development
Many of our healthcare accreditation clients use external reviewers (also referred to as assessors, inspectors, or site visitors) to conduct reviews and site visits. Some of them require these reviewers to complete a certain amount of training or professional development within a defined time period in order to remain qualified as a reviewer. They may also require certain staff members to track their own CPD activities.
ARMATURE Fabric’s Continuous Professional Development Module allows organizations to manage and enforce CPD requirements with flexible pathways, self-service entry and monitoring, as well as tools to help staff members understand exactly where their constituents are in the CPD process. It is designed to make it easier for staff members and constituents (such as external reviewers) to track and monitor CPD components, identify gaps, and complete requirements. Below is a summary of the key features:
Administration and Setup
1. Define unlimited CPD Pathways to support all professional development tracking within your
organization
2. Define Pathway Tracks to provide multiple ways to achieve/maintain your CPD requirements
3. Define activities and credit rules for granular control over CPD compliance
4. Target groups and contacts that are eligible to enter CPD data.
Self-Service
1. Allows users to easily visualize their status/progress with easy to use dashboard widgets
2. Allows users to see past and present activities and how their credits impact their overall CPD
requirements
3. Allows users to easily update their CPD activities at any time.
Staff Productivity
1. Easily identify those constituents who are compliant/non-compliant to CPD requirements
2. View a full history of all CPD activities and credits per constituent
3. Maintain activities and credits on behalf of your constituents (for those who cannot use self-service).
To learn more about our Continuous Professional Development module, you can check out this overview or watch our CPD webinar.
Public Directory
More recently, we have developed a feature that helps healthcare accreditors to maintain a live, public directory of accreditation/certified organizations or programs. This can be integrated/added to a website in order to maintain brand consistency.
The ARMATURE team is committed to making continuous improvements to our healthcare accreditation software, such as board voting, to help our accreditation customers operate more effectively. In the healthcare sector we support organizations involved in the accreditation of hospitals, diagnostic imaging, intervention-based procedures, telehealth, physical therapy, and continuing medical education. Accreditation in these segments can be complex. The easier we can make it, the better it is for all parties.
