Accreditation standards
Standards are developed in a formal process, involving stakeholders and a public hearing. In some cases a pilot test, including a test survey, is also performed. The IKAS Board finally approves the standards for release. All standards are accessible to the public on the IKAS website.
The standards include certain minimal requirements, but are also written to stimulate quality improvement. Thus it would be a mistake to read the standards as one would read a regulation from the Danish Health Authority or the Danish Patient Safety Authority. Not everything in the standards is written to describe and delineate precisely what the client should do. Parts of the standards are intended to stimulate reflection on one’s own practice, and thereby inspire improvement activities.
Each standard includes a descriptive part, where the purpose and meaning of the standard is explained in more or less detail, as appropriate. Furthermore, each standard includes a number of indicators that comprise the measurable elements of the standard set. Compliance with the standard set is assessed by rating of the indicators. This is done by the surveyor team during survey.
The standards are accompanied by rating principles, describing how compliance with the indicators is assessed and rated.
Standards and rating principles can be downloaded from the section “Resources”.