Is it Time to Update Your Accreditation Process?

Organizations have a wide choice of accreditation firms from which to choose. Competition is fierce. Those companies that help an organization reach accreditation in the most efficient manner have an advantage in the marketplace. Accreditation firms therefore need to update the methods they utilyze to become as competitive as possible.

Assure Your Customers by Embracing Accreditation Technology into Your Operations

In a competitive global business environment where a positive brand image is everything, you need to assure your customers that your team adheres to the most demanding standards. Whether you're involved in delivering medical care, a quality education or consumer goods, accreditation software can be customized to match your market niche. You'll be able to focus on building the rapport that you've established with your clients, and your customers will know that your team is backed by the ethics of a larger organization.

An Overview of Healthcare Quality Management For Hospitals and Medical Clinics

In order for hospitals and healthcare organizations to maximize their effectiveness they will want to participate in healthcare quality management. The process of healthcare quality management consists of four key aspects including patient focus, leadership, reliability and also the external environment. With these four things, healthcare organizations will have a template to go by when looking to improve their performance as well as providing the best healthcare available to their patients on a consistent basis. Since healthcare organizations such as hospitals and medical clinics need to ensure that patients are well cared for, it is essential that they follow certain steps and procedures to ensure that not only do patients get and stay healthy and get the best care, but also the organization itself continues to succeed.

Implementing Quality Management Technologies Improves the Efficiency of Your Team

If you're wondering what to do with all of the data that you generate during your company's daily operations, you may be curious about the benefits of today's quality management technologies. With software that streamlines your operations, you'll be able to focus more of your time and energy on your customer base. Because you'll have the chance to incorporate feedback into a continuous loop where everything has the same value, you'll make sure that those you do business with realize the importance of their contributions.

2 Ways to Refine Your Quality Management System

Accreditors have always needed to adapt to dynamic changes. You must ensure that you are assessing institutions based on the latest standards of their respective industries. Also, just like the institutions you audit, you must continuously refine your quality management system.

The Challenges that School Accreditors Are Facing

As an accrediting body, you need to be particular in assessing whether a company or institution is operating according to specific standards. School accreditors need to check if the institutions are providing quality education. Like any line of business, accreditation can present various challenges to the organizations that undertake it.

Scrutiny by the Government

The most tangible measures to check the quality of an educational institution are the number of graduates they produce proportional to their student body, as well as the rate at which those alumni are getting apt employment. When the school doesn’t have a lot graduates or when those they produce find it difficult to find employment because of their education, then questions about quality will arise.

These issues are continuously being scrutinized by the government, who are counting on accrediting bodies to assure quality education. If an accrediting body misses the school’s noncompliance with standards, then they are risking the welfare of students and their families (the ultimate victims of predatory or incompetent schools).

Dynamic Changes in Any Industry

Of course, there’s also the reality that standards in the education sector will constantly evolve. Knowing this, accreditors need to be sensitive to the changes and adapt accordingly. The academics you certify must always adapt, too.

Since these challenges are natural parts of the tasks of education accreditors, you have to continually refine your strategies as an organization and use purpose-built technologies available—such as customized audit software—to keep your certification management effective and sound.

Managing Change in an Accreditation Project

It’s never easy to make changes, especially in the middle of an ongoing accreditation project. Nevertheless, some changes are necessary, and very often they need to be implemented fast. Wrong or ill-defined scope, an auditor with skills and experience not ideal for the job, audits that need to be rescheduled—all of these reasons can necessitate certain changes to an assignment. 

Defining Usability in Software Selection

Usability may be a term that’s pretty self-explanatory. After all, when it comes to software, it’s either easy to use, or it’s not, right? There is more to usability than that, however, and it will be highly advantageous for you as a software purchaser to know about what goes into this particular aspect of accreditation management software.

Helpful Tips for Auditing Business Operations

Assessing a business, organization, or enterprise can be tough if you are the auditor. Some businesses and their employees feel as though the auditors are not on their side, and are not willing to report anything that does not conform to industry standards. Such prejudice works against you, and you will need to approach the auditing process carefully in order to dispel negative assumptions and assure enterprises that you are there to help them attain and retain accreditation.

Improving Your Accreditation Firm: Audit Software

As an accreditation firm, you should find ways to improve each area of your operations. This includes auditing processes. After all, you are responsible for making sure the businesses that you have accredited are always in compliance with set quality standards.

With the help of audit software, you can significantly improve your firm’s ability to accurately and efficiently perform audits. This is accomplished through the following ways:

Cloud-based Accreditation Software Features

Accreditation software can make your operations so much easier. With it, you can provide assessors with an app that can be accessed anywhere, minimize data collection errors, create reports faster, and ultimately enhance your productivity and bottom line. That being said, one of the ways you can make the most of your investment is to put it in the cloud.

Improve Processes with AMS

Accreditation management software (AMS) can equip accreditation companies with useful information to help them gain better insight into their operations and improve their ROI. When combined with sound planning, your software can allow you to take full advantage of your data and harness it in ways you may have thought impossible before.

Quality Management Systems: An Overview

ISO is a worldwide federation of national standards that was founded in 1947. ISO has a membership of over 100 countries, with one standard-setting body representing each member country (e.g. The American National Standards Institute represents the US). According to the federation, ISO is not an abbreviation, but a word derived from the Greek term “isos”, meaning “equal”.

The 3 Biggest Benefits of Audit Software

When people think about an audit, most will imagine IRS-type inspectors searching logbooks and records for any discrepancies and underhanded dealings. Although this is the kind of audit that you may regularly see in movies, it isn’t that far off from what software auditing tools actually do—it’s just that these tools do their job in a less flashy and mostly inconspicuous manner. Here are three of the most prominent benefits you’ll receive when your auditors use this type of software:

When Accreditation and Certification Combine

Accreditation and certification are two different terms. The former refers to the recognition of the institution’s competence in carrying out specific tasks, while the latter assures that the product or service is made according to existing standards. Many in multiple industries often interchange them to the point of confusion.

However, they’re still related to each other. Enter “accredited certification.”

This uncanny fusion means the institution is competent enough to carry out tasks that assure a product or service’s conformity to existing standards. Although accreditation isn’t a requirement, most institutions seek it to gain considerable reputation in the highly-competitive global market. It’s safe to say that accreditation is required in order to do business with multinational companies.

Triple Accreditation, Triple the Legwork

Triple accreditation is the term used among Master of Business Administration (MBA) schools around the world. An MBA school withtriple accreditation carries accreditations from:

·         The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), based in Tampa, FL with 727 accredited institutions.

·         The Association of MBAs (AMBA), based in London, the U.K. with 225 accredited institutions.

·         European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), based in Brussels, Belgium with 156 accredited institutions.

Of the 1,108 MBA schools accredited by these bodies, only 68 carry all three accreditations. The largest share of these triple-accredited schools are located in the U.K., with 20 schools, followed by France with 11. In North America, Canada and Mexico have two triple-accredited schools each, but none in the United States (despite the AACSB being based in Florida).

ARMATURE: Innovative Quality Management Software Made Even Better

ARMATURE Corporation is a leading developer of integrated quality management software. We are dedicated to helping organizations run their operations efficiently through our custom software solutions. To this end, we have revamped our standards and assessment software by introducing features designed to further empower their users. Our first-rate audit software comes in an Audit and Assessment Toolkit that makes an auditor’s job of preventing business risks and failures much easier. It is the perfect companion to our standards management tool that is designed to turn cluttered, paper-based standards into more manageable digital data-based systems. We gave these software essentials a major boost by improving usability, mobility, and processing features, all with the objective of providing more support to organizations that want to achieve smoother, waste-free quality management operations.
http://www.armaturecorp.com/armature-innovative-quality-management-software-made-even-bettera/

Using an Accreditation Management System Integrates Workflow Processes

Accreditation is comprised of many elements including data collection, submissions, and reviews. Participants need to understand where they are in the process, what has been accomplished, and remaining items. Providing visual indicators to your constituents, members, staff, and volunteers helps to see where they are in the process at any given time. As an experienced provider of accreditation solutions, ARMATURE understands the complexities you face executing accreditation tasks. We help you design and implement accreditation systems configured to your specific workflow. Please if you are interested in implementing an accreditation management system or adding tools/modules to automate and improve areas of your accreditation process.
http://www.armaturecorp.com/using-accreditation-management-system-integrates-workflow-processes/

Debunking Common QMS Myths

Most businesses use quality management systems (QMS). Those that don’t are doomed to go bankrupt. Why? Simple: QMS gives a business accurate clues on how it can improve the quality of its products and services, which consequently increases sales. A lot of companies, however, are reluctant to invest in QMS due to certain concepts that turn out to be just myths.

How Audit Software Can Help Businesses

While companies have the option to employ the best and brightest among their ranks, that does not necessarily mean that they will be automatically set for success. Without a sense of organization and conformity, even the most elite of employees will feel lost and confused, doing nothing for the business. That’s why companies need to have a solid audit plan in place, in order to keep everyone on the same page.

The Need for a Flexible Accreditation System

“Out with the old, in with the new;” no truer words could best describe the ever-changing state of the market than this old adage. It is no secret that the market changes according to recent developments (either with the supply chain, with consumer behavior, and so on), and that businesses need to keep up in order to meet evolving demands. In the same way, regulators of these businesses also need to constantly review the industry standards they create so that it also meets the changing needs of the market.

Improve the Efficiency of Your Accreditation Firm

Whether you deal in national or specialized accreditation, managing accreditation processes is a complex endeavor. Although it is difficult, continuously improving your process is an important task that cannot be done away with.

Fortunately, accreditation management software is able to streamline the accreditation process for your entire firm, improving the efficiency and productivity of your team. Some of the ways accreditation software achieves this include:

Implementing Accreditation Software: Define Roles to Optimize Your Process

As an accrediting body, you hold yourself to extremely high quality standards. This helps establish you as a best practices provider of accreditation services. After all, you are placing your stamp of approval on the programs/organizations you accredit. A suite of accreditation software (like ARMATURE’s ) enable you to operate securely and efficiently. Appropriate measures need to be taken to increase security and make the most of the software’s full potential. One such step would be to define roles for all software users and to set permissions based on those roles. This is one of the first steps to securing data within any organization.
http://www.armaturecorp.com/implementing-accreditation-software-define-roles-optimize-process/

Important Audit Software Characteristics

Audit software is an integral part of a functional quality management system. This means you have to know what qualities to look for.

The Features of Good Audit Software

Audits are important for a company since they are a great way to assess whether your operations are running at the highest quality standards. They can also point out various areas for improvement and spur change in the right direction. Many will find, however, that audits can be rather time-consuming, especially if you have more pressing matters to attend to. This is where audit software comes in. 

The Accreditation Process for Institutions

For colleges, universities, and other institutions, the accreditation process is a review of the quality of education they offer. When one of them gets accredited by a recognized accreditation body, they are identified as an institution that upholds the highest standards. While accreditation is voluntary, it is always beneficial for gaining the trust and support of the general public.

The Importance of Accreditation in Healthcare

People rely on healthcare providers to cure their illnesses, and ease their pain and suffering. Nothing less than quality care and services are needed to achieve this goal. Hospitals can assure patients that their healthcare services are, at least, on par with established industry standards, through accreditation. Healthcare accreditation has been defined as “a self-assessment and peer assessment process used by healthcare organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve.”