What It Takes To Get UHMS Accreditation

By Janine Hughes


The primary goal for the freestanding hyperbaric clinic should be to attain the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) accreditation. This is for obvious reasons; it is the way to stay in business for long. It assures other players that services offered by the facility are beyond reproach. Although it requires heavy investment to attain quality in all aspects, the benefits that follow are immense. The referrals from physicians and other medical practitioners increase while the medical insurers trust the institution with their clients are willing to reimburse any expenses without too much negotiation. Normally, the UHMS accreditation is voluntary; however, the process of attaining it is rigorous.

In order to be accredited, the medical facility's wound care team will have to provide data that detail the quality of the hyperbaric medicine, policies and procedures, safety and the patient outcomes to the team send by the UHMS to the facility. The team sent will also have to examine the staffing and training process and conduct an insight survey to examine other facilities available like the equipment, the operation and maintenance program, the standard of care and the patient safety procedures among others.

In order to ascertain this, the health care facility has to be surveyed by a team from the UHMS. In addition to above data, they have to gather data on training processes, the equipment operation and maintenance, and the safety standards in place.

Since the standards are so high, it is often advisable that the medical facility seeks services from expert consults to assess the extent to which their current establishment and procedures conform to the said standards. The consultants should offer insight in regards to scope, the resources, and time required for conformity. The consultant should also offer assistance in helping the facility conform by steering the processes required by the institution.

The decision to employ consultants comes with several other benefits that come with it. The consultants will come up with a report that details the tasks that are necessary for conformance and an estimation of resources required for this purpose. Secondly, the consultant should establish relationship and dependencies in these tasks to ensure that there is order in undertaking the tasks.

The survey conducted consists of data gathering from many scopes of the facility's operation. For patient care, the data has to be gathered on issues such as assessment procedures, the care provision, patient education, and the patient rights. For the oxygen chamber, the data is gathered in areas including electrical installation, fabrication, ventilation, fire protection, and gas system.

If a facility is UHMS accredited, then this is a proof that it has been examined by a third party that is non-biased and has been found to be at par with the hospital environmental standards. In addition to this, it is a statement that the medical facility is run by a very competent medical team managing health providers that meet the required qualification. It is the best assurance the regulators and the insurance companies can get certified that the facility offers quality patient care and with high standards of safety.

The data gathered is then analyzed and if the clinic meets the standards, it gets accredited and can start enjoying the benefits that comes with it. The immediate benefits include the trust earned from insurance providers and increase number patients resulting from referral from physicians and practitioners. In the long run though, this translates to increased income and growth.




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