hree more of the five public hospitals participating in the Pilot Scheme of Hospital Accreditation launched in 2009 received full accreditation for a four-year period from the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS). Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Caritas Medical Centre (CMC) and Tuen Mun Hospital (TMH) have now achieved this status, together with Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital, whose success in September 2010 was reported in a previous issue. The assessment result for Queen Mary Hospital is expected shortly.

QEH was assessed as having attained Extensive Achievements in three areas: (1) its systems for ongoing care of consumers / patients are coordinated and effective; (2) healthcare incidents, complaints and feedback are managed to ensure improvement; and (3) external service providers are managed to maximise quality of care.

Expressing his whole-hearted gratitude to all its 5,000 staff members for their enormous support and contributions, Dr Hung Chi-tim, QEH's Hospital Chief Executive, noted: "Our medical services are being transformed. They are provided through the collaboration of multi-departmental and inter-disciplinary teams. All our departments and specialties work hand-in-hand to improve our services, and they are scoring ever-greater achievements."

CMC also attained three Extensive Achievements: (1) it has systems in place to ensure that the care of dying and deceased consumers / patients is managed with dignity and comfort; (2) it minimises the incidence of falls and fall injuries through a falls-management programme; and (3) external service providers are managed to maximise quality of care.

Dr Ma Hok-cheung, Hospital Chief Executive of CMC, said: "The ACHS surveyors commended our hospital for its impressive endeavours to provide excellent and safe patient care, as well as the high level of awareness and commitment of our staff. Our emphasis on continuously improving our performance in order to ensure patient safety and service quality was well demonstrated during the accreditation process."

TMH received Extensive Achievement rankings in 13 of the 45 Clinical, Support and Corporate functions criteria during the assessment. They included: care is evaluated by healthcare providers and, when appropriate, with the consumer / patient and carer; the community has information on and access to health services and care appropriate to its needs; and better health and wellbeing for consumers / patients, staff and the broader community are promoted by the organisation.

TMH's Hospital Chief Executive, Dr Albert Lo Chi-yuen, commented: "I believe the hospital accreditation exercise has been our largest team project since TMH was established in 1990. It has truly been a team effort involving all departments and disciplines. The success of the exercise reveals our seamless cooperation and team spirit. I also thank the HAHO and our colleagues for their support in realising our vision of continuous quality improvement and service modernisation."