Hospital accreditation and clinical nutrition service in South Korea: a comment on Um et al.’s paper
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: The accreditation systems in health care institutions are one of the most relevant current health-related topics.It is widely recognized as a major step towards the implementation and maintenance of good practices; this needs, however, that both changes and their maintenance are adequately and frequently assessed.Moreover, and as most health care institutions provide health care in different areas, these assessments should not only be global, but also focus specific areas of intervention.At this level, the paper "International hospital accreditation and clinical nutrition service in acute care hospitals in South Korea: results of a nationwide cross-sectional survey" (1) is of great interest, as it explores the differences in clinical nutrition services between Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited and nonaccredited acute care hospitals.We positively highlight the scarce literature focusing such a specific theme.Despite the overall interest of the paper, some weaknesses should, however, be considered.Perhaps the most immediate regards that, despite the high participation rate (81.4%, corresponding to 35 of all 43 acute care hospitals in South Korea), there is an important lack of information regarding which hospitals did not participate.The information on the participation rates in the two groups separately would provide a better setting to discuss some of the results, concerning possible bias associated to different participation rates and its underlying motives.This limitation overlaps the one referred by the authors concerning the small sample size of accredited hospitals.
Authors: Rui Poínhos, Flora Correia
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2945617469