Our hospital staff members courageously deal with emergencies, angry relatives, difficult diagnoses and complex clinical procedures on a daily basis. Yet, mention the word “audit”, “standard”, “quality manual”, or “accreditation”, and otherwise sensible people suddenly remember they have an urgent meeting somewhere else and send their most junior staff as “wakil jabatan”.
Both of us understand this reaction, because over the years, we have met accreditation in different settings.
Wan Aasim, the clinician, is more familiar with ISO and its associated procedures, flow charts, documentation and the scary question: “Where is the documentation?”
Zalina, on the other hand, being an academician, was involved in MQA accreditation, where quality appeared in the form of programme outcomes, curriculum mapping, assessment evidence, and the equally frightening question: “Where is your proof?”
ISO taught us that good work cannot depend on one heroic person who knows everything. MQA taught us that good education cannot depend on beautiful claims without evidence. MSQH teaches us that good healthcare cannot depend on goodwill alone. It needs systems, standards, teamwork, honesty, and the courage to improve.
There is already a very detailed MSQH manual that explains the standards, criteria, evidence and many details hospitals are expected to understand. While we are grateful that these resources exist, we must confess that even today, when we look at the long list of standards, requirements, chapters, subchapters, policies, forms and evidence, both of us can still feel slightly overwhelmed.
We get so busy looking for the right file, the right form, the right signature, the right version of the policy and the right evidence that we forget to ask the most important question:
Once we understood that, MSQH became less frightening. It stopped being just an accreditation process. It became a mirror. Sometimes the mirror is flattering. Sometimes it shows us things we would rather not see. Yet, if we are serious about patient care, we need that mirror.
The manuals tell us what to do. They give us the standards, requirements, evidence and checklists. This book hopes to do something different. It hopes to remind us why we are doing it in the first place.
That is the spirit in which this book is written: not to make MSQH accreditation more complex, but to make it clearer, friendlier, and hopefully more human.
