The WFME developed accreditation standards for postgraduate medical education to stimulate local development of standards and to facilitate the acceptance of doctors in countries other than where they were trained [ 36]. 3.2.
For example, the American Osteopathic Association has developed accreditation for clinical criminal justice health fellowships in addition to certificates of added qualification (American Osteopathic Association 2012).
Should contracting with NGOs be pursued, a clear strategy is required that includes developing accreditation instruments, better contracting mechanisms and a system for monitoring and evaluating the entire process.
Recognizing the need to stimulate greater access to high quality early care and education, key professional organizations in early childhood developed accreditation systems that encourage their members and others in the early childhood professional community to implement higher quality programs based upon a professionally agreed upon set of program standards.
Strengthening the public health infrastructure was a driving force behind the formation of the Public Health Accreditation Board, which developed accreditation standards and measures for public health agencies [ 10, 11].
The group identified the main stakeholders for assessing the incremental costs of accreditation as: accreditation agencies; agencies involved in developing accreditation programmes, including designing and structuring the survey; and hospitals undergoing accreditation surveys.
In light of these pressures, the Ministry of Health and Population MOHPP) has implemented several health reforms including piloting social health insurance [ 8], establishing national health accounts and workforce projections for health planning [ 7], and developing accreditation systems for non-governmental facilities [ 9].
One way to assure quality at the transnational level is to develop "dual accreditation": degrees offered offshore are accredited by both the offering education provider's accrediting body and the professional body of the country in which the offering is being delivered.
More recently, employer bodies in several tourism industry sectors, namely, retail travel, meetings and inbound, have acted to develop individual accreditation schemes designed to confer a level of professional standing upon individuals working in their respective sectors.
The case study in Table 2 highlights some of the lessons learned from the national improvement journey in Thailand.> Another approach to address basic levels of quality improvement, especially in smaller and resource-poor facilities, is to develop an accreditation system that takes into account that not all providers will ever be able to meet the same set of standards.
