Medicare Approved Accreditation Agency - Research Paper Example

This paper describes the significance of American Osteopathic Association/Healthcare Accreditation Facilities Program (AOA/HFAP) for healthcare companies. It will include various regulations and standards in pharmaceutical practice. Accreditation organization in details AOA/HFAP ensures that organizations provide quality and safe services to patients. It ensures quality of services in health facilities including pharmaceutical companies, which have to provide high quality drugs (Brown, 2006).

In hospitals, the organization ensures that drug provision to patients is in accordance to requirements and standards set by HFAP. HFAP consists of a survey team that moves around hospitals and other health facilities to scope the performance of these institutions (Brown, 2006). HFAP dedicates itself to seeing the well-being of the organizations it surveys. The organization performs surveys with the aim of providing education. Surveyors are nurses, physicians, and skilled administrators possessing sufficient professional knowledge (Brown, 2006).

AOA has a purpose of ensuring quality of osteopathic education to those involved. It ensures awareness of the importance of joining the organization. It ensures that the healthcare provided is affordable by all patients (Brown, 2006). It supports research in osteopathic medicine and affiliates with other organizations to promote osteopathic medicine (Brown, 2006). Background on the CMS Approval Process CMS was formerly the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). Its purpose was to oversee Medicare programs and operate in conjunction with the government to provide Medicaid.

The organization saw a need for the approval process in order to determine the eligibility of institutions for support services (Office of the Federal Register, 2012). The organization came up with the approval processes so that the most eligible organizations received funds and other services to ensure quality health care. For an agency to receive recognition from CMS, it must provide the standards that it utilizes to accredit health companies (Office of the Federal Register, 2012). The accreditation organization has to avail its procedures for accreditation (Curley & Vitale, 2012).

The information provided must contain various aspects such as the frequency of conducting accreditation in agencies. Information offered by the accreditation agency to CMS is helpful in determining if that organization qualifies for support (Curley & Vitale, 2012). Role of NIAHO (National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations) NIAHO performs surveys to healthcare organizations to ensure compliance to various factors such as ISO standards. In this case, it ensures that the quality needs as per the ISO 9001 are met.

NIAHO concentrates on interactions and procedures in hospitals (Holdford et al., 2010). It ensures improvements of patient care by adhering to safety requirements, and lowering the cost of accreditation. NIAHO can exceed COP needs and involves ISO 9001 plus 2000 management systems for maintaining quality (Holdford & Brown, 2010). NIAHO ensures that hospitals and other health organizations comply with the requirements specified by CMS. Various surveys conducted by NIAHO intend to execute the ISO standards and lead to accreditation of health organizations (Curley & Vitale, 2012).

The survey process includes meetings needed to describe the scope and purpose of the survey about to occur