Develop Accreditation Standards for Nursing Departments at Mansoura University Hospital.

Abstract

Accreditation has gained worldwide attention as an effective quality evaluation and management tool. Accreditation has been defined as a system of external peer review for determining compliance with a set of standards. Accreditation standards are written to reflect current practice and expectations for the specific functions the nurses perform. Accreditation systems provided better quality results in nursing care; positive changes in leadership, commitment and support, use of data, staff involvement, and quality management; impact or effectiveness of health sector accreditation. Accreditation has recently gained great importance in Egypt, but nursing departments still lack accreditation standards and criteria. Hence, the present study aims to develop and validate a set of relevant, feasible, and reliable standards that needs for accrediting nursing departments at Mansoura University Hospital. The study subjects includes a jury group includes 12 academic staff from Faculty of Nursing and 10 nurse managers from Mansoura University Hospital. All head nurses (n=46) works in all inpatient departments at Mansoura University Hospital were included in the study. Three tools were used for data collection, namely; a validity form, interview questionnaire sheet, and an audit form. The study findings indicated that the proposed accreditation standards for nursing departments at Mansoura University Hospital are valid. A most proposed accreditation standard was met in less than a half of the cases. It is recommended that the developed accreditation standards could be used in Mansoura University Hospital.