O'Beirne Maeve, Zwicker Karen, Sterling Pam D, Lait Jana, Lee Robertson Helen, Oelke Nelly D
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Canada.
Qual Prim Care. 2013;21(1):23-31.
One method utilised to improve the quality of health care is accreditation. Although accreditation has been extensively used in the acute care sector, its presence in primary care is limited and so is our understanding of its nature, uptake and associated outcomes. Because acute care and primary care environments are vastly different, our understanding of acute care accreditation cannot simply be translated to primary care.
The purpose of this paper was to explore the current state of primary care accreditation.
An extensive search was completed examining peer-reviewed and grey literature. In addition, interviews with key stakeholders involved in primary care accreditation were undertaken.
From the 501 reviewed abstracts, 62 papers were used in this review in addition to 72 sources from grey literature. Eight interviews were also held with key informants.
In this review of the available literature of accreditation within primary care, it was found that accreditation in this sector is generally non-government funded and voluntary with some countries offering financial incentives. It was evident that there is a dearth of research on the nature and uptake of accreditation in this sector, along with how accreditation affects outcomes of care, whether it is an effective method to improve quality, perceptions of care, healthcare utilisation and costs. These findings imply that further research is required to examine the possible impact accreditation may have on health care within primary care.
用于提高医疗质量的一种方法是认证。尽管认证已在急性护理领域广泛应用，但其在初级护理中的应用有限，而且我们对其性质、采用情况及相关结果的了解也很有限。由于急性护理和初级护理环境差异巨大，我们对急性护理认证的理解不能简单地套用到初级护理中。
本文旨在探讨初级护理认证的现状。
完成了一项广泛的搜索，查阅了同行评审文献和灰色文献。此外，还对参与初级护理认证的关键利益相关者进行了访谈。
在501篇被审查的摘要中，除了72篇灰色文献来源外，本综述还使用了62篇论文。还与关键信息提供者进行了8次访谈。
在对初级护理领域现有认证文献的本次综述中发现，该领域的认证通常非政府资助且为自愿性质，一些国家提供经济激励措施。很明显，关于该领域认证的性质、采用情况，以及认证如何影响护理结果、是否为提高质量的有效方法、护理认知、医疗保健利用和成本等方面缺乏研究。这些发现意味着需要进一步研究，以考察认证可能对初级护理中的医疗保健产生的影响。
