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标题：Suggested new standards to measure social accountability of medical schools in the accreditation systems
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作者：Mohamed Elhassan Abdalla
期刊名称：Journal of Case Studies in Accreditation and Assessment
印刷版ISSN：1941-3386
电子版ISSN：1941-3386
出版年度：2014
卷号：3
出版社：Academic and Business Research Inst
摘要：The role of medical schools as stakeholder for health improvement is well recognized. Medical schools are responsible of producing competent doctors who are capable to meet the society health needs and expectations. Other functions of medical schools are its participation in service and conduction of research. The concept of social accountability is introduced to strengthen the role of medical schools in health, the concept has been defined by WHO as "The obligation of medical schools to direct its education, service and research towards addressing the priority health concerns of the community, region, and/or nation they have a mandate to serve. Priority health concerns are to be jointly identified by governments, health care organizations, health professionals and the public". The compliance of medical schools with the expected functions varies from country to country or within the same country. The objective of this work is to promote the principles of social accountability within the medical schools by developing standards and procedures that can be used by the existing accreditation systems. This research is qualitative based on the phenomenological type of research and grounded research theory. It concludes the importance of accreditation systems as a lever of improvement and power to change the practice towards the expectations of the society
关键词：phenomenological type of research; social accountability; medical school ;accreditation ; var currentpos;timer; function initialize() { timer=setInterval("scrollwindow()";10);} function sc(){clearInterval(timer); }function scrollwindow() { currentpos=document.body.scrollTop; window.scroll(0;++currentpos); if (currentpos != document.body.scrollTop) sc();} document.onmousedown=scdocument.ondblclick=initialize;2;Suggested new standards; Page ;INTRODUCTION ;Social Accountability of Medical schools ;During the last two decades; the concept of social development has been raised ;especially in the context of launching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The ;attainment of the required level of development necessitates social accountability; which has ;been addressed in all aspects of life; including political; social; and economic aspects. ;Nevertheless; each discipline has defined social accountability according to the goals of each ;discipline.(1; 2) ;Medical schools are not dissimilar to other sectors that adhere to the principles of ;social accountability; thus; the WHO has defined social accountability of medical schools as ;the "obligation of the medical schools to direct their education; research and service activities ;towards addressing the priority health concerns of the community; region; and/or nation they ;have a mandate to serve. Priority health concerns are to be jointly identified by governments; ;health care organizations; health professionals and the public" (3). ;When medical education is viewed as an important aspect of a community; one can ;determine that all people and societies anticipate the presence of medical schools that have ;the complementary capabilities of responding to individual and societal needs; collaborating ;with society and the heath system to identify the priority health needs of society; and reacting ;accordingly (4-7) . ;In consideration of the social accountability of medical schools; there are many ;concepts in common with the public accountability of the health system (8). These ;commonalities may be observed in the context of the four values of the health system; ;Relevance; Quality; Cost-effectiveness and Equity (3);These four values must be considered ;when planning the entire programme within a medical school; when implementing such a ;programme; or when measuring the effects of the school's programme on the community; ;graduates; and health services. ;Accreditation of Medical Schools ;The WHO documents defined accreditation as "a voluntary peer-review process ;designed to test the educational quality of new and established medical programmes";(9). ;The process of accreditation; either voluntary or mandatory accreditation aims to ensure the ;compliance of medical schools with pre-established standards to satisfy the consumers of the ;educational process and to produce competent graduates to ensure a high level of institutional ;functioning and to improve public confidence in medical schools (10-15). Today; the ;accreditation process has been implemented in many countries throughout the world (16). ;Ninety-two countries are registered with the FAIMER Directory of Organizations; which ;recognises and accredits medical schools (DORA) (15) ;Recent advances in the establishment of standards for the accreditation of medical ;schools include the work led by the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) in ;collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO); which aims to provide a general ;quality assurance instrument for medical education to be used worldwide on a voluntary basis ;(17). This work resulted in the publication of the document "Basic Medical Education ;WFME Global Standards for Quality Improvement" in 2003 (18). The WFME standards for ;basic medical education include nine areas with a total of 36 sub-areas (18; 19). Accordingly; ;many regions and countries have adopted the areas suggested by the WFME in their ;accreditation systems with some modification in the sub-areas (9; 14; 17; 19-23).