“Establishment of the Public Agency for Accreditation and Continuous Quality Improvement of Health Care in Serbia“ is a joint project of the Ministry of Health of Republic of Serbia and the European Union for whose implementation the EU has secured 1,5 million EUR from the IPA financial instrument for Serbia. The Project has a 22 month duration - 15 June 2009 – 14 April 2011.

This project’s main purpose is to support the initial activities in development of the Agency for Accreditation of the Health Care Institutions of Serbia (AZUS) so that appropriate institutional, organizational and management arrangements as well as system capacities are in place in order to perform accreditation program in Serbia in a competent and self-sustainable manner. Project objective is to improve the health care system in the Republic of Serbia so as to create a safe, equitable, viable and high-performance oriented health care system where providers of care are stimulated to achieve continuously increasing standards of efficiency, effectiveness and quality.

The specific objectives of this Project

•    to support development of the Agency for Accreditation of Health Care Institutions and assist it in the determination and development of its role, functions, approach and processes within the overriding legal framework and the broad Serbian health system quality improvement strategy
•    to assist the continuous improvement of quality of health service delivery in the Serbian health sector by creating a balance between the professionally and/or institutionally driven internal quality improvement processes with the external assessment mechanisms

Accreditation objectives
 
The objectives of Accreditation are improvement of health care quality and patient safety and establishment of trust of health care service users in health care system.

Accreditation represents a process of assessment of health care institutions performance quality based on the application of optimum level of established standards for health care institutions operation in given health care area or medical branch (Health care Law, article 213). 

Additional objectives of accreditation are: improvement of health care management, ensuring of efficient and worthwhile provision of health care services, and establishment of equal or approximately equal conditions of provision of health care services for the entire health protection system.
 
Based on the Law on Health care and the Law on Public Agencies, the Agency will assume the set authorities for: establishment of standards for accreditation of health care institutions, evaluation of quality of heath care services provided to general population, management of administrative procedures related to accreditation of health care institutions, awarding of accreditation certificates and keeping record of the awarded certificates (Health care Law, article 215).