Accreditation of Hospitals: Assuring Quality Health Care for Medical Tourism in India

Abstract

“Quality of patient care” is a significant axiom in the emerging medical tourism industry
and has become an essential prerequisite to subsist in the challenging and competitive industry.
Quality of patient care incorporates everything the health care institution delivers, from how
institutions care for their patients, to how they ensure effective, efficient and equitable service
delivery and conform with occupational safety. Accreditation for health care organizations
denotes third party assessment of the degree of conformity of the institutions with respect to a
set of global bench mark set by international accreditors. As the quality of patient care in
hospitals cannot be experienced prior to the availing of their treatment, international patients
often select their overseas hospitals based on the accreditations. Though premium standards of
patient care and cost effectiveness of medical treatment are the key motivators of their travel to
emerging medical tourism destinations, accreditation of the chosen hospital is the most important
factor in medical treatment destination selection. Accreditation ensures that cost effective health
care does not mean inferior health care and provides informed patient choice on the hospitals
they prefer for their overseas treatment. Through this article, a study is done about the evolution
of international accreditation of patient care institutions (hospitals) and correlation of hospital
accreditation, quality heath care delivery and medical tourism in India.