Egyptian Hospital Accreditation Program: Surveyor Guide

This Surveyor Guide accompanies the Egyptian Hospital Accreditation Program: Hospital Standards document. The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) with the assistance of the USAID-funded Partnerships for Health Reform Project (1995–2001) successfully developed and implemented an accreditation program for their primary health centers. Building on this experience, the MOHP Quality Improvement Directorate drafted a set of standards for hospital creditation. The standards then were refined with the collaboration of government hospitals, university hospitals, teaching hospitals, and private hospitals. The USAID-funded Partners for Health Reformplus Project provided technical assistance to the current version of the hospital accreditation standards. The standards are specific for Egypt, in that they comply with Egyptian laws, regulations, and culture, but they also meet the basic intent of international standards. It is expected that the standards will be a catalyst for change and improvement in both the culture and practice of health care in Egypt. A total of 709 standards were developed and agreed on, and are categorized into three types: (69) critical standards, (290) core standards, and (349) non-core standards. To become accredited, a hospital must meet all the critical standards and reach a cumulative score of 85 percent on the core standards. The noncore standards constitute a more ambitious target that hospitals are encouraged to work toward; current accreditation requires hospitals to reach a cumulative score of 40 percent on the non-core standards. The Surveyor Guide explains how to evaluate compliance with each hospital standard and how to score the compliance as either fully, partially, or not met.