IAS recognized June 9 as World Accreditation Day with the accompanying theme — Accreditation: Supporting the Delivery of Health and Social Care. More than 60 countries are participating in the global initiative established by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). IAS is a recognized accreditation body and a signatory member of both ILAC and IAF, which provide the infrastructure necessary for consumers in many different countries to have confidence in the services of health and social care providers.
The primary purpose of health and social care accreditation is to ensure that users of the service receive a consistent high level of care, with quality patient outcomes at its core value. Accreditation creates an essential framework for health and social care providers to improve their processes and environment, which stimulates continuous quality improvement to the patient experience, and results in increased confidence in the outcomes.
"Accreditation provides objective proof that the health and social care providers operate competently and safely, are patient-focused, and deliver outcomes that can be relied upon," said Chuck Ramani, president of IAS. Accreditation helps regulators to manage risk, as they are able to target their inspections more reliably and effectively, while delivering cost savings. Accreditation by IAS, and other accreditation bodies recognized by ILAC and IAF, is the preferred and globally accepted method for determining the technical competence, reliability and integrity of testing and calibration laboratories, inspection agencies, and management system and product certification bodies. "When IAS accredits an organization, its reports are accepted by regulators worldwide," said Ramani.
This globally accepted accreditation process makes it economically feasible for companies to export or import products to meet market demands. Accreditation is a formal, independent verification that a program, institution or company meets established quality standards and is competent to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks. Accreditation has been used for more than 50 years as the definitive means to evaluate organizations. It is used by all the world's major economies and many developing economies.
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