It demonstrates a commitment to quality care.

The purpose of IAC accreditation is “to ensure high quality patient care and to promote health care by providing a mechanism to encourage and recognize the provision of quality echocardiographic diagnostic evaluations by a process of accreditation.” Through the accreditation process, laboratories assess every aspect of daily operation and its impact on the quality of health care provided to patients. While completing the accreditation application, laboratories often identify and correct potential problems, revising protocols and validating quality assurance programs. Because accreditation is renewed every three years, a long-term commitment to quality and self-assessment is developed and maintained. Laboratories may use IAC Echocardiography accreditation as the foundation to create and achieve realistic quality care goals.

It provides a confidential peer-review.

Designed to serve laboratories as an educational tool, IAC Echocardiography accreditation is made up of two crucial steps. First, laboratories conduct a detailed self-evaluation using the IAC Standards for Echocardiography Accreditation and the Online Accreditation application. Completion of the application requires detailed information on all aspects of laboratory operation as well as the submission of actual case studies for review. The case studies are crucial in determining the laboratory's compliance with the IAC Standards, and are the basis for judgment of the quality of work that laboratories perform. Once the self-evaluation is completed, the documents and case studies are reviewed by the IAC Echocardiography Board of Directors. All aspects of the review are confidential.

It's a recruiting tool.

Accredited laboratories can use their accreditation as a recruiting tool to attract the best and brightest physicians and sonographers. Talented professionals look for high-quality programs, and accreditation assures potential employees that a laboratory is dedicated to achieving the highest standards for patient care.

It's intersocietal.

The intersocietal, multi-specialty approach is the foundation of the accrediting divisions under the IAC umbrella. IAC Echocardiography is a nonprofit organization established with the support of the sponsoring organizations. Representatives from these sponsoring organizations, including physicians and sonographers, serve on the IAC Echocardiography Board of Directors. All areas of Echocardiography were represented on the Board during the creation of the Standards for accreditation, and all areas continue to steer the accreditation process.

It's proven successful.

Modeled after the success of the first of Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) division, Vascular Testing, IAC Echocardiography was created in 1996 to accredit Echocardiography laboratories, becoming the second member division of the IAC. Now in its second decade offering accreditation, IAC Echocardiography has accredited nearly 4,700 Echocardiography sites to date. A multitude of private insurers as well as Medicare carriers link reimbursement to IAC Echocardiography accreditation. The IAC offers multi-modality accreditation through its divisions dedicated to Vascular Testing, Echocardiography, Nuclear/PET, MRI, CT, Dental CT and Carotid Stenting. 

It demonstrate's accountability

Health care organizations are held to very high levels of accountability, by peers and by the general public. In numerous states, reimbursement directives that require accreditation of the laboratory have been instituted by Medicare carriers as well as private, third-party insurers (please visit Payment Policies section for the current list). Similar draft payment policies are pending throughout the United States. Laboratories attaining accreditation before it is required for reimbursement demonstrate a willingness to surpass current expectations. The general public and members of the Echocardiography community will recognize an unmatched commitment to providing quality health care by laboratories that achieve IAC Echocardiography accreditation.