At the invitation of Snezana Manic MD, director of the Agency for Accreditation of Health Care Institution of Serbia (AZUS), Ahmed Novo MD, director of the Agency for Quality and Accreditation in Health Care of Federation of B&H (AKAZ), and Sinisa Stevic, MD, Mr Sc, director of the Agency for Certification, Accreditation and Health Care Quality Improvement of the Republic of Srpska (ASKVA), visited this institution on June 27-28, 2013.
The visit was organized to improve cooperation between these three agencies, which was raised to formal level through establishment of the South-Eastern European Health Care Network and the Regional Centre for Quality and Accreditation, as well as through the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding between AZUS and ASKVA.
On the first day of the visit, AZUS presented its accreditation program and achieved results. Subsequently, a visit to General Hospital “DJordje Joanovic” in Zrenjanin was organized, and Gordana Kozlovacki MD, director of the hospital, presented their work and achieved quality improvement in providing health services to patients from the perspective of an accredited health care institution.
On the second day of the visit, guests from AKAZ and ASKVA presented their work and accreditation programs to their hosts. Afterword, AZUS employees introduced a new accreditation software which will be in use in September 2013.
At the end of a very successful working visit, the agencies’ directors jointly concluded that had, through learning the way of work of all agencies, efficiently recognized similarities and differences in organization and accreditation programs which could be used as a good basis for continuation of information and experience sharing and harmonization of the programs in order to simplify monitoring of its effects on safety and quality improvement in health care. Presentation of the accreditation program of the Zrenjanin hospital as an example of good practice in accreditation has confirmed that accreditation is a tool for continuous health care quality improvement that brings visible results. They have also decided on further cooperation of the agencies through documents, standards and external assessors exchange, organization of annual meetings of employees hosted by different agency as well as through work on jointly created projects relevant to the agencies’ scope of work.