Amid the winds of change sweeping the assessment of domestic medical institutions, the global trend is moving toward abrupt or obligatory authentication, an expert said.

Professor Lee Sang-il이상일 at the department of preventive medicine at University of Ulsan College of Medicine울산의대 introduced the new trend, during the “2017 Workshop for the autumn member of Korea Society for Quality in Health Care” 한국의료질향상학회 Tuesday.

“Korea has operated the authentication program for some medical institutions and long-term care hospitals, but will need to diversify the system,” Lee said. “For example, authentication assessment can be made for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at hospitals or disease treatment.”

Lee emphasized the direction of the authentication assessment in the world has changed and Korea also has to make the authentication fit for its unique situation.

“There are many cases to assess institutions without prior notice. But it 's hard to make assessment without notice for both medical institutions and authentication organizations,” he said. “There are other ways for the authentication such as mandatory authentication, authentication by a local community, and the integration of surveys on patient satisfaction and authentication.”

These methods are designed to upgrade the authentication assessment system and increase transparency for the evaluation results.

“Some organizations in Canada have tried to make the authentication assessment and the introduction of authentication programs mandatory,” he said. “There is no scientific evidence that the authentication system improves medical quality. Changes such as enhanced transparency in authentication results, however, will have much influence on Korea, too.”

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