Abstract

Sultan Qaboos University Hospital was established in 1990 as a teaching hospital as part of Sultan Qaboos University and connected to the medical school at the beginning and the nursing school thereafter. In 2024, the hospital was separated to be under a new entity called 'University Medical City'.

The hospital started its initial accreditation journey in 2003 with a start to establish a quality assurance office, and hence, since then, the administration has gone to the ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS). The hospital was the first public organization that was certified by ISO QMS in Oman. In 2012, another transformation was initiated at a higher level by contracting with the Canadian Healthcare Accreditation (ACI) to date.

In this paper, the authors will compare the three phases of the of the journey: before accreditation, during ISO QMS accreditation, and ACI accreditation, which created an advanced transformation in the quality management implementation within the hospital.

The comparison will focus on five domains: patient outcomes, patient safety, quality of care, operational efficiency, and staff performance and satisfaction.

Results may help decision-makers assess the effectiveness of the external accreditation body to improve the quality of healthcare in Oman, as a new national accreditation standard is going to be established soon.