Developing a Holistic Accreditation System for Medical Universities of Iran

Introduction: Accreditation is a quality assurance system in higher education in order to make sure universities meet the minimum accepted standards. In this study, the institutional accreditation system for Iran’s Medical Universities was designed as was ordered by Ministry of Health and Medical Education and with the goal of continuous improvement of quality of education, research and service provision. Methods: The accreditation system was developed through a three stage project, each stage consisting of several steps. In the first stage, several groups investigated the history, methods and standards of accreditation systems in different countries. In the second stage, the accreditation standards and criteria were written using the viewpoints of experts and stakeholders in each area and through consensus in each expert group. In the third stage, in order to achieve national consensus, the standards were sent for 1171 experts and faculty members in 40 medical universities throughout the country. Results: Achieving the consensus of experts from different medical universities and respecting the accepted socio-cultural values as well as the rules and regulation of Islamic republic of Iran, the institutional accreditation standards were developed in 10 areas with 95 standards and 504 criteria. The standards with more than 70% agreement, were considered as “must” standards and the rest as “should” standards. Conclusion: Through compliance with national accreditation standards, the medical universities will play an important role in promoting the health system in the country. Also, the medical universities could have a better position among international societies by establishing the national accreditation system based on the results of this project.