Business View - July 2015 29
zations. This level playing field is critically important in
Canada, which does not have a national health care
system, but rather as many as 13 provincial and ter-
ritorial systems with different administrative rules. It’s
quite variable. Our program aims to bring consistency
to the standards against which care delivery is orga-
nized and provided, whether you receive your care in
Newfoundland, BC, or Nunavut.
Accreditation is about quality improvement and our
goal is to support health care organizations in raising
the quality bar. What we’re doing today is influenced by
many factors such as new health care diagnostic and
treatment modalities, environmental realities such as
the aging population, and access to care. What does
that mean in practical terms? If you move from acute
care to long-term care, or home care, those transitions
can present significant risk in terms of poor communi-
cation, of falling through the cracks – so how can we
contribute to improvements during these transitions
through our standards?
BUSINESS VIEW: Can you talk about the overall or-
ganization and the organizations that are a part of it
– are there any unifying issues that everyone seems
to have or the majority of them seem to have that
are coming across your desk these days?
NICKLIN:
There’s a move globally for more client-cen-
tered care. The public is increasingly asking to be ac-
tively involved in their care. For Accreditation Canada,
our standards must reflect this direction and raise
the bar for client-centred care across the country. As
the research provides the evidence, we upgrade our
standards to reflect these changes. But the standards
aren’t limited to organizational provision of care; we
have governance and leadership standards too. What
does client-centred care mean to a board and how it
functions? What does it mean to the leadership? What
does it mean to care in the emergency room? Those
of us involved in leading and supporting the improve-
ment of health care are committed to enabling this im-
portant focus and the positive impact it will have on
overall health. We all have to do a better job of how we
provide client- and family-centred care.
The other issue that everyone continues to be con-
cerned about is patient safety. It’s very important to
stay on top – there are new diagnostics, new medica-
tions. For our aging population, the complexity of care
continues to escalate, and that’s a challenge for all
of us. Assisting health care organizations and health
care providers to stay ahead of the curve, and to de-
liver safe and quality care, is a team effort that Ac-
creditation Canada has a significant role in facilitating.
All health care organizations also grapple with the
HEALTHCARE
