Hospitals have one week to request accreditation

Hospitals in Romania have to to submit their applications for accreditation by next week.
So far 426 hospitals took this approach and in July the first units will be accredited.
‘We started with the Military Hospital in Cluj, which was first. We went along with two hospitals in Baia Mare and Moineşti and then with the Cantacuzino Hospital and now it is continues with Matei Balş.

The coming month the final accreditation verdict will be given.’
‘Basically three hospitals are good and the fourth is very good’, said Dr. Romulus Dan Şerban, President of the National Commission on Hospital Accreditation.
To qualify for funding health from the insurance houses, hospitals must apply for accreditation no later than 7 July.

Differing in terms of hospitals’classification, the stake of the accreditation was to obtain financing from the budget and referred to a general standard assessment of quality of the services provided by hospitals in Romania.

The National Evaluation Commission involved the state authorities and representatives of the medical system, and the effective verification of the many points of evaluation will be performed by the so-called external evaluators.

Set of conditions for hospitals in Romania

Hospitals in Romania must meet a set of conditions in order to function and implicitly to continue to receive funding through the health insurance houses.

Thus, the medical units must adapt their strategic plans to the needs and rights of the patients and the medical care to be provided without discrimination.

However, the patient must be informed and providing care to respect both his dignity and privacy.

However, the hospital representatives said that the most difficult part will be providing the funding for the necessary investments to meet the accreditation criteria.
‘It is not so easy to find sources of funding during this two year crisis with another two coming, but, well, depending on the local situation, if you manage to carry out better contracts, you can make a development fund.’

‘This depends on the funding of the hospital, and what type of contracts you manage to do with the house and according to local business, city hall, local council, which for a year now, as you know, most hospitals went to local councils. Not even then can find such large funding sources, as they do not have such a great profit, especially at the city hospital level, but we managed’, said Lucian Horhotă, doctor, physician ICU at the Bolintin Vale Hospital in Giurgiu county.

Accreditation Commission drew warning signal

Accreditation Commission representatives put a warning on the seriousness with which the work should be addressed.

Some hospital managers scheduled the visit of the Committee this year and thereafter, they realized that they could not possible be prepared.

‘They applied without realizing that there were indicators that have to be fulfilled and now there are multiple withdrawal requests of the sequence of time that they have allocated for the procedure. Applying for the procedure does not mean the end of the procedure.’
‘If they continue to keep their promises, as they planned to meet the deadline, then I will have to notify the National Ministry of Health that they only applied without carrying out the procedure for those when they have to enter the procedure, and then there is practically canceled the registration number’, said the President of the Accreditation of Hospitals, Romulus Dan Şerban.

After applying for accreditation, a deadline is set for the visit of the accreditation commission.

At the end of the visit, the Commission makes a final report and decides whether the unit is accredited or not.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University