Accreditation
Accreditation Canada is an independent, non-profit organization that assesses health and social service providers across the country against standards of excellence. The survey typically takes place in four-year cycles, and Yukon Hospitals have been a part of the Accreditation process since 1987.
As a part of a four-year cycle, we conduct a self-assessment and then welcome an external team of Accreditation surveyors, comprised of our hospital peers from across Canada, to undertake an in-depth examination of our programs, processes and documentation to measure our performance against more than 1,700 different criteria.
Surveyors directly observe hospital operations, conduct interviews with patients and family members, staff and partners and undertake a documentation review. The accreditation team traces the journey of the patient and learns about administrative processes.
This may include tracing how an orthopedic patient moves through the entire system from their initial referral, to discharge from hospital. From an administrative point of view they look at the process of development of an emergency response plan, to how drills are then practiced and evaluated. The purpose of these on-site surveys are to understand our hospital system as a whole, to identify areas for growth and to celebrate successes.
The Benefits of Accreditation
Accreditation is one of the ways in which our hospitals publicly demonstrate accountability and our on-going commitment to quality. The award is also a recognition of excellence to our patients, community and health partners. There are a number of benefits for our hospitals to take part:
- Facilitates continuous quality improvement with nationally recognized best practices
- Assists us in identifying and addressing needed changes in our health care delivery
- Demonstrates our hospitals’ commitment to excellence as this in-depth process is voluntary
- Improves the morale of staff, as they receive external as well as internal, recognition for their hard work and dedication
- Strengthens stakeholder confidence with external reporting
- Recognizes our achievements, innovations and creativity
- Facilitates information sharing and interdepartmental collaboration within the organization and with our community partners
2023 Final Report
Yukon Hospitals’ 2023 final report clearly identifies areas of strength, as well as our opportunities for growth. This report and findings will guide further quality improvement initiatives throughout all our hospitals.
Some of the strengths identified by Accreditation Canada are our established First Nations Health Programs and Cancer Care services, the infection control measures carried out by Environmental Services, and our 2022-2027 Strategic Plan, with our open commitment to humility, acknowledgment of historical wrongs and intentional use of feedback received from our community and commitment to Truth & Reconciliation, Decolonization and Indigenization moving forward as an organization.
As an organization, we also know there are things we can be doing better. The final report clarified some of these opportunities for growth, such as our need to create a more robust patient and family engagement process, our organizational follow-up on incident reporting, more efficient scheduling for surgical services, and having a fuller integration of First Nations Health Programs throughout hospital services.
We want our communities to know that this process of Accreditation was not a conceptual exercise. The report has given us clear priorities and targets to focus on, based on national best standards of practice in health service delivery. We have a list of 23 Required Operational Practices to prioritize optimizing by December 1st of this year, and another 14 priority practices to address by May 31st, 2024.
We invite you to read through our final report (PDF Document).
For more information on Accreditation Canada, visit accreditation.ca.