Qualitative Study of Attitudes of Healthcare Professionals Regarding Accreditation and Quality, in the Pre- accreditation Period in R. Macedonia

The healthcare system in the Republic of Macedonia has planned to commence accreditation of the healthcare organizations. The Government of Macedonia chose to establish its own hospital accreditation systems. The objective of this study is to understand the attitudes of healthcare professionals in hospitals in Macedonia, to gain understanding of the value of accreditation on quality of care as perceived by the staff members and the possible strategies to improve implementation of accreditation , in a pre-accreditation period in R. Macedonia. We chose a qualitative research method and study explorative in nature to see the perceptions and opinions of providers. We used purposive sampling and included health care providers from tertiary health care level. Semistructured interviews with open questions were used as research tools. A total of 30 themes emerged during the coding and were grouped in 6 main domains - Institutional, organizational and management settings; Financial issues; Education; Normative regulations; Professionalism,Quality of care and services- which jointly gave an insight to the perception about accreditation of health care organizations in Macedonia on a tertiary level. We can conclude that the healthcare providers in our study perceive accreditation as a tool, which can catalyze the process towards improving the overall performances in a healthcare organization towards achieving the end goal to deliver quality services to the patients. Keywords: pre-accreditation period; accreditation; quality; perceptions of healthcare professionals