Show us what you have. We will tell you if it is enough.

ASF is publishing this statement to record, openly and with a date, the direction in which our accreditation model is moving. Facilities currently working with us, facilities considering accreditation, and anyone interested in how accreditation should work in the 2020s should read it.

Why we are publishing this

Accreditation has a paperwork problem. Facilities across the world — hospitals, clinics, laboratories — spend months creating documents that exist only for the accreditation visit and are never used again. Surveyors arrive, check the binder, leave. Three years later the same process repeats. The facility is no safer. The paperwork is no thinner.

ASF was founded to do this differently. This statement sets out how, specifically, our model is changing to make that promise real.

1. Practice-based evidence — your paperwork, not ours

From 2027, ASF assessments ask one question about each criterion: does this practice happen in this facility? The evidence can be whatever the facility already uses — a handwritten checklist, a printed form, an Excel sheet, a digital record, a staff interview. If the practice is real and staff follow it, it passes.

We will never ask a facility to create a document that does not already exist in some form. If something is genuinely missing, ASF provides a ready-made template from our free Document Library and gives the facility 90 days to adopt it in whatever format works for them. The template is a starting point, not a required format.

This changes the evidence standard in all seven ASF organisational standards from “documented policy” to “demonstrated practice, evidenced in the facility’s own format.”

2. The right criteria — observable, not documentary

ASF maintains approximately 35 assessed criteria per facility type — focused, observable, practice-based. Every criterion meets one test: a surveyor can directly observe whether this practice is happening. Criteria that can only be checked by reading a document — and where that document has no direct bearing on patient safety — sit in advisory guidance. They remain good practice. They are not assessed requirements.

The seven standards themselves do not change. The Non-Negotiable criteria do not change. What ASF has done — and what most accreditation bodies have not — is keep the assessed criterion count at the level where every single criterion can be observed in practice and genuinely acted on. Thirty-five criteria that matter, assessed rigorously, is more powerful than three hundred that dilute attention and generate paperwork without improving care.

The full criterion set for every facility type is published openly at france-asf.fr/standards.

3. Continuous self-assessment — quarterly, not triennial

The three-year survey cycle was designed around the cost of sending surveyors to facilities. It was never designed around how improvement actually works. Improvement is continuous. A snapshot every three years measures almost nothing about the quality of care in the intervening period.

From 2027, ASF-accredited facilities complete a structured self-assessment every quarter using ASF’s digital tool. Each quarter focuses on a different evidence type — documentation, staff knowledge, observed practice, outcomes data — so that over four quarters a complete evidence portfolio is built. The annual verification visit reviews that portfolio. The surveyor verifies, not investigates. The visit takes one day, not three.

After each quarterly self-assessment, the facility sees its own progress curve. Where a criterion is consistently red, the system recommends the specific corrective action — a course, a tool, a document template — from ASF’s free library. The facility takes responsibility for its own improvement. ASF supports that process. The annual visit confirms it.

The public accreditation registry will show each facility’s self-assessment trend, not just its accreditation status. Transparency is the accountability mechanism.

4. ISO 9001 and ISO 15189 — optional add-on modules

ASF accreditation stands alone as a complete clinical quality standard. It does not require ISO certification and does not depend on it. For facilities that want or need ISO recognition — because a government contract requires it, because their clinical governance board requires it, or because they want the internationally recognised mark — ASF offers two optional add-on modules.

Both modules are designed as add-ons to existing accreditation, not parallel processes. A facility already accredited by ASF can add either module at any time. Where ASF’s core criteria already satisfy an ISO clause — and many do — that is recorded explicitly in the criterion text with an ISO tag. Facilities approaching the modules for the first time will find they are already partway there.

5. What does not change

Seven patient-journey standards. The Non-Negotiable criteria. Open publication of all standards. Free Document Library, tools, signage, and booklets. Independence of accreditation decisions from any commercial relationship. The principle that accreditation exists to improve care for patients, not to satisfy a body’s revenue model.

Timeline

Comments and questions

This statement is published openly because ASF’s standards development process is open. Facilities, health professionals, patient advocates, and anyone with a view on how accreditation should work are welcome to respond.

Write to us at info@accreditation.ge with the subject line Strategic Direction Response.