The Concept of Center of Excellence

Center of Excellence
Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor's Name
September 27, 2020
Introduction
A center of excellence (COE), while not possessed with a clear-cut and uniform definition across the healthcare industry, is understood to be a specific package of services outstanding in quality focused on treating a specific disease (Elrod & Fortenberry, Jr., 2017). Hospitals and other healthcare institutions develop COEs to intensify clinical care measures and strategies specific to certain sicknesses or ailments. This process of increased attention to healthcare processes is marked by an increased rate in research, higher and more demanding baseline expertise for handling physicians, and the adoption of multiple integration strategies to better improve the quality of the COE services.
The concept of a Center of Excellence
As mentioned earlier, the COE, as of now, does not have a rigid definition. Some healthcare institutions may adopt the term for mere marketing purposes and to gain clout for the services they offer, while others adhere to rigid standards in order for it to take on the term COE while avoiding public criticism and backlash (Elrod & Fortenberry, Jr., 2017). One of the specific fields of medicine that has standardized tests to earn the title of a COE is bariatric surgery.
Two accrediting bodies, the Surgical Review Corporation (SRC) and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), have collaborated to create an accrediting program with standardized tests aimed at determining institutions providing excellent-quality bariatric surgery services (Pratt & Greer-Ullrich, 2009). Institutions that pass these tests gain accreditation as ASMBS Bariatric Surgery Centers of Excellence (BSCOE).
While the tests to determine a COE have ripened and solidified in some healthcare fields, sadly, such progress is not present all across the board. However, this does not mean that all hope for a median in determining a COE quality is lost. Reference may be made to tests already put in place, such as those administered for BSCOEs, to determine the particular quality of healthcare services provided in other institutions from other fields.
For example, the BSCOE accreditation implements a rigorous and challenging assessment program not only focused on the hospital but also the surgeons themselves. This translates not only to an assessment and analysis of hospital records, logistics, facilities, site inspections, interviews with staff and key personnel, but also individual tests for each medical professional. BSCOE accreditation involves a thorough examination of the surgeon's education and commitment (Pratt & Greer-Ullrich, 2009). Individually, the examiners measure each surgeon's capacity to perform and their loyalty and commitment to the applicant's COE. It also measures their competence concerning contemporary developments, including up-to-date techniques and instruments in the field of bariatric surgery. (Pratt & Greer-Ullrich, 2009)
Distilling the essence of BSCOE accreditation highlights two essential factors that must be considered before labeling a specific institution as a COE: (1) institutional quality; and (2) individual quality. On the one hand, institutiona...