For Australia’s health services, accreditation is a vital safeguard and tool to ensure continual improvement, for the benefit of all Australians. Health libraries play a critical role in supporting hospitals in the accreditation process.
To support health libraries, and following research initiated as part of the HeLiNs (Health Libraries for the National Standards) project, ALIA Health Libraries Australia (HLA) has created a new tool for health libraries to support their role in hospital accreditation.
The NSQHS Standards - Health Library Accreditation Guidance is ready to use, and comes complete with accreditation activity examples & ready to populate modifiable templates.
This quality improvement intervention aims to provide a standard tool kit that can be easily adapted and utilised by hospital libraries, to demonstrate to the respective hospital patient experience, quality, risk, and safety team standard leads (and other groups responsible for the administration and implementation of the ACSQHC’s NSQHS standards) that hospital libraries play a key role in ensuring quality evidence-based practices.
Health librarians working in hospitals will find this an invaluable tool, particularly those who answer yes to any of the following questions:
- Does your hospital have a traditional or a SNAAP (Short Notice Assessment for Accreditation Program) on the horizon?
- Do you need to promote the services you deliver in the context of the hospital's assessment criteria?
- Can your clinicians tick off all the elements on their accreditation checklists - and if not, can you help? (e.g. What are the quality improvement activities underway to improve the delivery of comprehensive care to patients?)
Feedback has already been positive:
"I didn't realise how many activities my library undertakes that actually fit within a NSQHS standard! Thank you"
"This tool will allow us to translate the research and information work we have undertaken into a format/language the assessors and clinical staff will understand and easily consume. Speak their language easily and save time!"
"It is an amazing piece of work - very comprehensive."
If you are in a hospital library, we strongly encourage you to access the tool today.
Next steps:
Further information sessions and workshops will be rolled out across 2025, sign up to ALIA HLA to receive updates.
The intention of this tool is not to be static. If you have an example you wish to share with the network, please email [email protected].
Acknowledgement and thank you to contributors:
ALIA HLA would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this project: Gillian Kilby and Alice Anderson (Monash Health); Cheryl Hamill and Glynis Jones (WA Health); Amhara McKey and Trudi Maly (Northern Territory Health); Gemma Siemensma (Grampians Health); Rob Penfold (Peninsula Health); Lori Korodaj (Canberra Health Services).