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Objective. To compare the different philosophies, emphases and processes of national and international accreditation paths available to pharmacy programs in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. To identify engagement of GCC pharmacy programs with International Pharmacy Accreditation or Certification (IPAC) and the outcome advantages of IPAC compared to other national accreditation standards. Findings. National quality standards across the GCC countries are similarly structured but in different stages of development. Pharmacy specific standards are absent. Of the 44 institutions identified offering pharmacy degrees, only three out of 28 of those in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and all but two out of 15 elsewhere in the GCC, have national program-level accreditation. Nine of the institutions have IPAC via either the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education-International Services Program (ACPE-ISP), the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs (CCAPP) or the German Accreditation Agency in Health and Social Sciences (AHPGS). None of the institutions have sought accreditation from the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC). IPAC may serve as a tool to provide specific recognition of the quality of pharmacy programs and to enhance the quality of pharmacy education in the region. Summary. In the absence of national bodies to accredit pharmacy initial training degrees, IPAC has become increasingly popular in the GCC countries. There are distinct regional differences in uptake and choice of IPAC. IPAC may serve as a tool to provide specific recognition of the quality of pharmacy programs and to enhance the quality of pharmacy education in the region in the absence of an unmet for pharmacy-specific national accreditation. Keywords: international accreditation, pharmacy education, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, ACPE certification program, national accreditation

Aware of the fact that they can ensure their survival on the educational scene only if they follow modern trends and requirements that come from today’s highly changed and turbulent educational environment, national bodies that are in charge of defining educational policies, quality assurance systems and their successful implementation and control, together with universities in Serbia are trying to respond to the challenges they face in the best possible way, and use them as an opportunity to improve the quality of education and acquire competitive advantages. The implementation of the quality system, continuous improvement and upgrading of the quality in all aspects of work of higher education institutions has become a necessity, in view of the fact that education process is a service, the quality of which is assessed both by national bodies in charge of accreditation and the evaluation of achieved results, and by students. When a suitable climate and culture is created to promote quality as a common goal of all participants involved in the educational process, and when the focus is on the quality of the teaching process, scientific and research work, administration, equipment, ambience, i.e. the environment where the educational service process takes place, only then can we expect the learning outcomes to achieve outstanding results to the satisfaction of the students. One of the elements of the quality assessment, as an integral part of the accreditation process is the self-evaluation report, which includes the presentation of the achieved results and the degree of fulfilment of the defined standards. In the process of self-evaluation, a special place and importance belongs to students, therefore, this paper will pay special attention to the Standard 13, which refers to the involvement of students in the process of self-evaluation of higher education institutions in Serbia.

For outsiders to higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Korea, predicting the outcomes of the International Education Quality Assurance System (IEQAS)—a Korean institutional accreditation system for HEIs—is challenging. The annual IEQAS accreditation has been conducted behind closed doors; the assessment process is confidential, and there is little access to the data for the public and individuals. However, many stakeholders, such as overseas applicants to Korean HEIs, may want to predict whether particular universities will pass the upcoming IEQAS. Hence, we sought an alternative method for the outsiders to predict a binary result of the IEQAS accreditation by utilizing disclosure data that the Korean government has published. To best predict the outcomes, we mapped out a threefold discrete model combining logistic regression, discriminant analysis, and neural network. We collected the information disclosed by the Ministry of Education in 2019 on 138 Korean private HEIs and then analyzed the secondary public dataset in line with the discrete method that ensures generalizability. Results showed (i) three education investment factors, and one school operations factor appeared as key predictors among the tested indices; (ii) education cost per student within education investment proved to be the most crucial element; and (iii) while leveraging the disclosed data turned out to be reliable, neural network’s predictive accuracy was higher than those reported using logistic regression and discriminant analysis. By processing the publicly available disclosure data, our self-study model may effectively assist in predicting IEQAS outcomes, and it can also be used as a diagnostic, prior to accreditation, by local HEIs in other nations to check their preparedness and likelihood of success within similar contexts.

Objective. To compare the different philosophies, emphases and processes of national and international accreditation paths available to pharmacy programs in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. To identify engagement of GCC pharmacy programs with International Pharmacy Accreditation or Certification (IPAC) and the outcome advantages of IPAC compared to other national accreditation standards. Findings. National quality standards across the GCC countries are similarly structured but in different stages of development. Pharmacy specific standards are absent. Of the 44 institutions identified offering pharmacy degrees, only three out of 28 of those in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and all but two out of 15 elsewhere in the GCC, have national program-level accreditation. Nine of the institutions have IPAC via either the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education-International Services Program (ACPE-ISP), the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs (CCAPP) or the German Accreditation Agency in Health and Social Sciences (AHPGS). None of the institutions have sought accreditation from the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC). IPAC may serve as a tool to provide specific recognition of the quality of pharmacy programs and to enhance the quality of pharmacy education in the region. Summary. In the absence of national bodies to accredit pharmacy initial training degrees, IPAC has become increasingly popular in the GCC countries. There are distinct regional differences in uptake and choice of IPAC. IPAC may serve as a tool to provide specific recognition of the quality of pharmacy programs and to enhance the quality of pharmacy education in the region in the absence of an unmet for pharmacy-specific national accreditation.

Websites have become the main information source, being a crucial element of our daily life and a global network. In this context, the importance of the websites of pharmacy schools is considered not only for their educational mission, but also for their gates to the world. In this study, we evaluated the websites of pharmacy schools based on criteria issued in the literature. Websites of all pharmacy schools in Türkiye were evaluated by scoring the availability of predetermined items, where -tests and paired -test were used to compare the groups. As a result, we found that there is no statistical difference between private and public and accredited or non-accredited schools ( >0.05). Also, we observed no statistical difference between the scores in 2012 and 2021 ( >0.05). Most pharmacy schools in this study were public, and the accreditation status still seems challenging. Of these 39 schools, only 14 schools are accredited. Total scores of public schools were found to be higher than the private ones and notably, accredited schools have higher scores. Yet, there is no statistically difference between accredited and non-accredited schools or public and private schools. Importance of websites as a communication tool for higher education institutions (HEIs) is indisputable. In conclusion, pharmacy schools should keep up to date with their official websites, considering the virtual world we fell into with the web technologies' developments. Also, further studies should be conducted on the websites of pharmacy schools regarding user demands. Besides we suggest that pharmacy schools' website' quality should be improved and keeping them up to date should be ensured.

Purpose The perception of consumers towards the products or services that are provided by organisations that are certified to various international quality management and allied standards, such as the standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization, has not been extensively researched. Available research is limited to few standards. It is not comprehensively explored if consumers view certified products, services or organisations favourably in each case. This study aims to explore inclination of three consumer categories i.e. retail consumers, business consumers and subject expert consumers towards 11 international management system standards. Design/methodology/approach A survey is carried out among 229 consumers of different types in different countries. Total 11 quality management and allied standards are studied. Similarities and differences among different consumer groups towards these 11 standards are analysed using Chi-square test. Findings The study shows that although all consumer categories perceive products, services, and organisations certified to international management system standards favourably, the inclination towards certification is greater among developing economies than in developed economies. It is also proven that all standards are not equally popular among consumers. The brand name of a certification agency is found not influencing consumer’s preference towards certification. Originality/value The study is unique in three ways. First, it comprehensively analyses multiple quality management and allied standards from consumers’ point of view. Similarities and differences among retail consumers, business consumers and subject experts are researched, which was not attempted previously and thus it shows a novel approach. Second, no other study has analysed so many standards together. Third, differences in perception of consumers towards international standards between developing and developed nations are compared, which was not available earlier for all the 11 standards.

The Kent County Health Department (KCHD) was accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) in September 2014. Although Michigan has had a state-level accreditation process for local health departments since the late 1990s, the PHAB accreditation process presented a unique opportunity for KCHD to build on successes achieved through state accreditation and enhance performance in all areas of KCHD programs, services, and operations. PHAB's standards, measures, and peer-review process provided a standardized and structured way to identify meaningful opportunities for improvement and to plan and implement strategies for enhanced performance and established a platform for being recognized nationally as a high-performing local health department. The current case report highlights the way in which KCHD has developed and implemented its strategic plan to guide efforts aimed at addressing gaps identified through the accreditation process and to drive overall improvement within our agency.

As part of the ISO 15189:2007 accreditation process, the Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi laboratory became the first internationally accredited hospital laboratory in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa in 2011 through the South Africa National Accreditation System. Seven preanalytic, 10 analytic, eight postanalytic, and five administrative performance parameters were monitored from 2009 to 2012 to measure the impact of the accreditation process. Most measures in all four categories showed substantial improvement. The seven preanalytic measures all showed major improvement-between a quarter and a half sigma. Real but less dramatic improvement appeared in analytic and postanalytic measures, but greater than one sigma decrease in analytic \"procedure violations\" and a three-quarter sigma decrease in excessive turnaround time were noted in these categories. Administrative improvements included dramatic decreases in misdirected and missing reports and complaints. This study demonstrates the correlation of the accreditation process with improvement in quality measures in a low-resource region.

Introduction Neoadjuvant therapy (NT) is the standard of care for clinical stage II-III rectal adenocarcinoma, but utilization remains suboptimal. We aimed to determine the underlying reasons for omission of local staging and NT. Methods We conducted a retrospective study of patients with clinical stage II-III or undocumented clinical stage/pathologic stage II-III rectal adenocarcinoma who were treated in 2010–2016 in one of nine Intermountain Healthcare hospitals. The outcomes of omission of local staging and NT were examined with multivariable models. Risk- and reliability-adjusted rates of local staging and NT were calculated for surgeons who treated ≥ 3 patients. Pathologic and long-term outcomes were examined after excluding patients who were not resected or who underwent local excision ( N  = 11). Results Local staging was omitted in 43/240 (17.9%) patients and NT was omitted in 41/240 (17.1%). The strongest risk factors for local staging and NT omission were upper rectal tumors and surgeons who treated ≤ 3 cases/year. Thirty-six of 41 (87.8%) cases of omitted NT had local staging omitted. Adjusted surgeon-specific local staging rates varied 1.6-fold (56.3–92.4%) and NT rates varied 2.8-fold (34.1–97.1%). Surgeon local staging and NT rates were strongly correlated (r = 0.92). NT was associated with lower rates of positive circumferential radial margins (7.9 vs. 20.0%; P  = 0.02), node positivity (33.3 vs. 55.0%; P  = 0.01), and local recurrences (7.6 vs. 14.9% at 5 years; P  = 0.0176). Conclusions NT omission should be understood as a consequence of surgeon failure to perform local staging in most cases. Quality improvement efforts should focus on improving utilization of local staging.

A critical moment in patient-centered care for individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the initial diagnosis and education about treatment options. This article describes an innovative hospital-to-home hemodialysis (HHD) transition program designed to support patients newly started on dialysis, addressing both clinical and emotional needs. Through multidisciplinary collaboration, the program offers comprehensive training, psychosocial assessment, and ongoing support to empower patients. The case of Patient A, a 39-year-old teacher who experienced a 'crash start' and successfully transitioned to HHD, highlights the program's benefits, including increased autonomy and improved quality of life. This approach bypasses traditional in-center dialysis, promoting better outcomes and patient satisfaction in managing CKD.