The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), like all entrepreneurial organizations,continues to extend its reach and product line. I have published previous notes about JCAHO which you may want to link to. In this case, The company is now offering  "disease specific" accreditation. Here's an announcement about a conference it sponsored entitled Disease Specific Care Conference and below is the list of the program objectives for event:

• Build a business case to initiate or improve a disease- specific care program using the employer perspective
• Assess information from organizational case study presentations for methods of improvement
• Integrate current theories of disease self-management to enhance current knowledge and to plan for improvement
• Evaluate what performance measures would be useful in disease- specific care programs

I have posted a number of previous notes about medical tourism and, more specifically, about Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok. High quality overseas hospitals such as Bumrungrad are positioning themselves in the global healthcare market as quality leaders in addition to providing surgical procedures to consumers at very low cost. It should therefore come as no surprise that Bumrungrad has been quick to take advantage of the disease-specific accreditation being offered by Joint Commission International (JCI), a subsidiary of JCAHO (see: Bumrungrad Accreditation Marketing). Below is an excerpt from the story (boldface emphasis mine):

The Bumrungrad, the biggest hospital in medical tourism hospital in the world, received two “disease-specific” accreditations: one for treating strokes and one for treating heart attacks. JCI reviewers reviewed the hospital’s stroke and heart attack patients, including emergency measures, rapid imaging and diagnosis, experienced specialists, and effective long-term treatment. JCI criteria are based on international, best-practice clinical guidelines. Bumrungrad is one of only two hospitals outside the US to receive such disease-specific accreditation, and it is the first to be accredited for more than one program. Once again the Bumrungrad is showing the other players in the medical tourism industry the way. JCI accreditation will help the hospital to cut a deal with a big American insurance company which will offer overseas treatment options for policy holders.

Pay attention to the last sentence in this story. You may also want to refer back to a previous note that I posted (see: The "Blues" of South Carolina Endorse Medical Tourism).