High-complexity care.
Outpatient setting.
No accreditation built for it — until now.
Day surgery centres. Specialist outpatient units. Diagnostic and imaging centres. Procedure clinics. These facilities perform sophisticated clinical work outside a hospital — with no inpatient safety net and no accreditation framework designed at their scale. ASF fills that gap.
Sophisticated clinical work. No framework to verify it.
Ambulatory clinics occupy an unusual position in the healthcare landscape. They perform procedures and deliver specialist care at a level of clinical complexity that was once confined to hospital inpatient settings — but they operate outside the hospital, without its infrastructure, its on-call teams, or its internal quality systems.
The major international accreditors were built for hospitals. Their standards assume inpatient admission pathways, hospital-grade infection control infrastructure, and a clinical governance structure that an ambulatory clinic rarely has or needs. The standards are the wrong shape for the setting.
ASF’s ambulatory clinic programme is designed specifically for outpatient clinical settings — with standards that address what actually happens in a day surgery centre, a specialist outpatient unit, or a diagnostic facility, rather than forcing a hospital template onto a fundamentally different environment.
- No inpatient safety net if an outpatient complication occurs
- Patient flows faster — errors have less time to be caught
- Anaesthesia and sedation outside a hospital environment
- Infection control without a hospital’s dedicated infrastructure
- No overnight observation for post-procedural complications
- Referral pathway to a hospital is a critical quality indicator
The ASF ambulatory standard addresses these risks directly — not by applying hospital standards, but by building standards that are shaped by the ambulatory context. Procedure safety, sedation protocols, discharge criteria, complication management, and patient follow-up are all assessed as ambulatory-specific processes.
Five ambulatory clinic types. One accreditation framework.
The ASF ambulatory programme covers the full range of outpatient clinical settings. Each is assessed within the same four-domain framework — with standards calibrated to the specific clinical activities of that facility type.
Day Surgery Centres
Facilities performing surgical procedures under general, regional, or local anaesthesia with same-day discharge. The highest-complexity ambulatory setting — and the one with the most direct patient safety risk.
- Surgical safety checklist compliance
- Anaesthesia and sedation protocols
- Post-anaesthesia recovery and discharge criteria
- Complication management and hospital transfer pathway
Specialist Outpatient Units
Multi-specialist or single-specialty outpatient centres delivering consultations, minor procedures, and chronic disease management. The volume and complexity of clinical decisions require a structured quality framework.
- Care pathway adherence by specialty
- Medication prescription and reconciliation
- Referral documentation and follow-up
- Patient feedback and complaint management
Diagnostic & Imaging Centres
Radiology, laboratory, and combined diagnostic facilities. Clinical accuracy, equipment calibration, radiation safety, and result communication are the primary quality risks — and the primary focus of ASF standards in this setting.
- Equipment calibration and maintenance records
- Radiation safety and dose monitoring
- Result turnaround and communication protocols
- Critical value reporting pathway
Procedure Clinics
Endoscopy units, infusion centres, dialysis clinics, chemotherapy day units, and similar procedure-specific facilities. High volume, repeated patient contact, and infection control risk define the quality challenge.
- Infection prevention and decontamination
- Procedure-specific protocol adherence
- Adverse event monitoring and reporting
- Patient identification at every step
Rehabilitation & Therapy Centres
Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and multi-disciplinary rehabilitation facilities. Patient-centred goal setting, outcome measurement, and the interface with referring hospitals are the core quality indicators.
- Goal-setting and outcome measurement
- Multi-disciplinary team coordination
- Patient progress documentation
- Discharge planning and community handover
If your clinic type is not listed, contact us. The ASF ambulatory framework is designed to be adapted. We assess each new setting against the four core domains and build the specific standards collaboratively with the facility.
Four domains. Ambulatory-specific evidence.
The same four domains apply across all ASF programmes. What is ambulatory-specific is the evidence — the standards address outpatient clinical processes, not hospital admission and discharge pathways.
Procedural Safety
Surgical safety checklists, sedation protocols, infection prevention, equipment safety, complication management, and the hospital transfer pathway. The ambulatory-specific version of patient safety — where the risks are real and the safety net is thinner.
Clinical Quality
Care pathway adherence, diagnostic accuracy, prescription and medication management, outcome monitoring, and follow-up documentation. Assessed by specialty and procedure type — not by generic hospital indicators.
Management & Governance
Leadership structure, staff credentialing, incident reporting, adverse event documentation, and financial transparency. For ambulatory settings: particular focus on consent processes and the documentation of complication and transfer decisions.
Patient Voice & Accountability
Patient feedback at point of discharge, complaint management, independent patient council, and public reporting. In ambulatory settings: particular emphasis on informed consent documentation and post-procedure follow-up communication.
What ambulatory membership includes.
- Monthly indicator monitoring — procedure-specific quality indicators reviewed monthly by an ASF clinical adviser
- Annual survey — on-site assessment by an ASF-trained ambulatory surveyor against the agreed work plan
- Patient feedback system — QR-based discharge feedback, reviewed monthly, every complaint answered in writing
- Patient council — independent, convened and facilitated by ASF, meeting outcomes published publicly
- Staff credentials — ASF Training Passport for every clinical and administrative staff member
- Incident reporting support — structured adverse event reporting and root-cause analysis support
- Certificate from day one — issued on membership start, renewed annually on survey evidence
- Public listing — listed as an ASF-accredited ambulatory facility at france-asf.fr/accredited-facilities
Ambulatory membership.
- Day surgery centres — from €790/month (higher surveyor specialisation)
- Specialist outpatient units — from €690/month
- Diagnostic & imaging — from €690/month
- Procedure clinics — from €640/month
- Rehabilitation centres — from €590/month
Country programme pricing for cohorts of 3+ facilities. All prices exclude VAT.
Tell us your clinic type and country.
We will tell you what fits.
The first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If ASF is not the right fit for your facility, we will tell you honestly.
