The effect of external inspections on safety in acute hospitals in the National Health Service in England: a controlled interrupted time-series analysis.

In the United States, unannounced accreditation inspections are deployed extensively to evaluate hospital safety. This interrupted time-series analysis found that enhanced accreditation procedures in the United Kingdom did not improve rates of either pressure ulcers or falls. In a PSNet interview, the president of The Joint Commission discussed how accrediting bodies can help achieve high reliability.