Pharmacy service accreditation: Raising the bar of practice standards

To summarize the journey of a tertiary and quaternary care hospital outside the United States in receiving American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) accreditation for its pharmacy services.

Tertiary and quaternary care hospitals have gained their reputation owing to the high quality and advanced services that they provide. Our organization, King Faisal Hospital & Research Center (KFSH&RC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is a 1300-bed capacity hospital that serves as a center of excellence in solid organ transplant, genetic and metabolic diseases, hematology and oncology, and cardiology, in addition to a diversity of medical services. Accreditation of the pharmacy services by ASHP represents an important recognition of the quality and breadth of the services performed at KFSH&RC. The process of accreditation and the accreditation standards have also continued to serve as a guide for the hospital to maintain pharmacy service standards as they evolve.

As the first internationally accredited pharmacy services, KFSH&RC now demonstrates the path forward for other international hospitals seeking to reach the same standards of practice defined by ASHP.