International healthcare accreditation

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Due to the near-universal desire for safe, effective, and high quality healthcare, there is a growing interest in international healthcare accreditation.^[1] Providing healthcare, especially of an adequate standard, is a complex and challenging process. Healthcare is a vital and pervasive issue; it influences all aspects of societies. It has medical, social, political, ethical, business, and financial ramifications. In any part of the world healthcare services can be provided either by the public sector or by the private sector, or by a combination of the two. Healthcare can be provided in hospitals or be accessed through practitioners working in the community, such as general medical practitioners and dental surgeons.

This occurs in most parts of the developed world— a setting in which people continue to express increasingly high expectations for the quality of care. This trend is especially strong in nations where socialised medical systems exist, primarily in the European Union.^[2] The United States is a notable exception among developed Western countries in regard to its availability and affordability of healthcare. In 2007, 45.7 million US citizens (i.e. 15.3% of the national population) had no health insurance whatsoever^[3] Despite this, in 2007 the USA spent nearly $2.3 trillion on healthcare, roughly 16% of the country's gross domestic product, and more than twice as much per capita as the OECD average.^[4] Some US citizens unable to access adequate healthcare within the country are seeking healthcare internationally. This phenomenon is often referred to as "medical tourism", or "global healthcare".