Purpose: To evaluate the impact of joint commission international accreditation on health care processes as well as to assess the challenges faced
by the physicians and nurses .
Method: Conducted a cross sectional study in 11 health centers belong to Dubai health authority. Prepared a checklist and questionnaire to assess
the changes in the processes brought by accreditation as well as the challenges faced by employees respectively. Studied perceived challenges by
recruiting physician (n=106) and nurses (n=194) using convenience sampling technique. Done content validity of the tools with clinical quality
experts. Conducted pilot study for the questionnaire and checked the reliability using Cronbach alpha (0.924). After obtaining ethical clearance and
consent from subjects, the researcher visited health centers and administered questionnaire to the participants. To evaluate the process
improvements, the researcher audited documents for the availability of processes before and after accreditation using the validated checklist,
which consisted of 25 processes reecting various domains of quality, employee engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration and communication.
Results: Observed tremendous improvements in the availability of processes. The proportion of processes before and after the accreditation was
statistically signicantly different (p <.001) for quality of health care. However for employee engagement (p=.250) and interdisciplinary
collaboration and communication (p=1.000) no statistical signicance were noted even though there were signicant improvements. Majority
(57.5%) of doctors and nurses perceived that the accreditation processes were challenging.
Discussion: Observed processes improvements ensuring quality, employee engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration and communication after
accreditation.However,majority ofthe employees perceived that, the accreditationwas challenging in terms ofworkload, communication and documentation.