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Facility perception of nuclear cardiology accreditation: Results of an Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) survey

Journal of Nuclear Cardiology volume 22, pages 496–503 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Background

The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act requires accreditation for all non-hospital suppliers of nuclear cardiology, nuclear medicine, and positron emission tomography (PET) studies as a condition of reimbursement. The perceptions of these facilities regarding the value and impact of the accreditation process are unknown. We conducted an electronic survey to assess the value of nuclear cardiology accreditation.

Methods

A request to participate in an electronic survey was sent to the medical and technical directors (n = 5,721) of all facilities who had received Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) Nuclear/PET accreditation. Demographic information, as well as, opinions on the value of accreditation as it relates to 16 quality metrics was obtained.

Results

There were 664 (11.6%) respondents familiar with the accreditation process of which 26% were hospital-based and 74% were nonhospital-based. Of the quality metrics examined, the process was perceived as leading to improvements by a majority of all respondents for 10 (59%) metrics including report standardization, report completeness, guideline adherence, deficiency identification, report timeliness, staff knowledge, facility distinction, deficiency correction, acquisition standardization, and image quality. Overall, the global perceived improvement was greater for hospital-based facilities (63% vs 57%; P < .001). Ninety-five percent of respondents felt that accreditation was important. Hospital-based facilities were more likely to feel that accreditation demonstrates a commitment to quality (43% vs 33%, P = .029), while nonhospital-based facilities were more likely to feel accreditation is important for reimbursement (50% vs 29%, P≤ .001).

Conclusion

Although the accreditation process is demanding, the results of the IAC survey indicate that the accreditation process has a positive perceived impact for the majority of examined quality metrics, suggesting the facilities find the process to be valuable.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland School of Medicine, 295 Stoner Ave, #103, Baltimore, MD, 21157, USA

    Scott D. Jerome DO & Tapan Godiwala MD

  2. Intersocietal Accreditation Commission, Ellicott City, MD, USA

    Mary B. Farrell MS, Gary V. Heller MD & Sandra L. Katanick CAE

  3. Department of Pediatrics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Louis I. Bezold MD

  4. Winchester Neurological Consultants, Inc, Winchester, VA, USA

    John Y. Choi MD

  5. Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA

    Kevin M. Cockroft MD, MSc

  6. Cardiovascular Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Heather L. Gornik MD

  7. Departments of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division) and Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Warren J. Manning MD

Authors
  1. Scott D. Jerome DO
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  2. Mary B. Farrell MS
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  3. Tapan Godiwala MD
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  4. Gary V. Heller MD
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  5. Louis I. Bezold MD
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  6. John Y. Choi MD
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  7. Kevin M. Cockroft MD, MSc
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  8. Heather L. Gornik MD
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  9. Sandra L. Katanick CAE
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  10. Warren J. Manning MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mary B. Farrell MS.

Additional information

See related editorial, doi:10.1007/s12350-014-0021-3

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Jerome, S.D., Farrell, M.B., Godiwala, T. et al. Facility perception of nuclear cardiology accreditation: Results of an Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) survey. J. Nucl. Cardiol. 22, 496–503 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12350-014-0011-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12350-014-0011-5

Keywords

  • Accreditation
  • quality
  • reimbursement