Patient safety is at the core of DNV’s risk management services for the healthcare sector.

Improving quality and patient safety is key to reducing medical errors. The hospital environment is inherently risky, with a continuous need to prevent contamination and infectious diseases, and to maintain the often very precarious health of patients while also ensuring the safety of staff and visitors.

Given the numerous highly publicised cases of unnecessary deaths due to erroneous procedures, operations on wrong organs and medication errors, the healthcare sector is increasingly engaged globally in the pursuit of improved quality, patient safety and care, with a heightened understanding of risk management concepts.

While this pursuit is global, its execution is with very few exceptions local, affected by the local healthcare governance model. The various levels of maturity of the healthcare sector worldwide present an additional obstacle on the road to providing a uniform and consistent transfer of knowledge and best practices.

DNV delivers the risk management tools that hospitals and healthcare institutions need to reduce the risk of malpractice in particular and improve management in general.

Healthcare role
DNV is in the process of attaining the role of a recognised healthcare Accreditation Organisation (AO), starting with the crucial hospital sector. This increasingly recognised role involves conducting a formal, independent review, in accordance with national regulations, that
carries with it a monetary return to the accredited organisations, usually in the form of an insurance refund or insurance rate reduction. DNV has taken steps to position itself in this role in the USA, by seeking government approval as an AO, and in the UK, where DNV has been
contracted by the National Health Service (NHS) as a ‘risk partner’, by assessing hundreds of hospitals controlled by the NHS, developing standards and training hospital staff to enhance patient care.

Integrating accreditation to standards
When seeking approval as an Accreditation Organisation, DNV has applied its own Healthcare Standard. DNV has responded by developing and implementing its unique National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organisations programme. This hospital accreditation programme provides hospitals that are seeking accreditation with a survey process that integrates accreditation to standards that comply with the Conditions of Participation with ISO 9001 certification, the universally accepted international standard for a quality management system.

DNV’s global presence enables hospitals or related healthcare organisations to benefit from the use of best practices and benchmarking. This allows them to excel in their quest for quality improvement and patient safety while utilising the local resources that are well versed in the local healthcare governance requirements.

Improving quality and safety
DNV has been involved in improving quality and patient safety in hospitals and healthcare institutions through various means:

• Hospital accreditation

• Hospital evaluation and rating

• Hospital management system certification in accordance with national voluntary schemes

• Hospital management system certification to international standards

• Risk management tools/methodology

• Corporate Responsibility/sustainability/fraud prevention profiles.

DNV carries out assessments and benchmarking, and recommends the most effective programmes. These are run in support of the existing management teams to enable professional resources and a wide breadth of knowledge to be delivered as effectively as possible.