Kick-off of the re-accreditation process for Karolinska CCC

Invited to the meeting were the Board of Directors, Cancer Theme Management, Cancer Research KI Executive Board, Children's Oncology/Hematology, the Functional Management Group Medical Diagnostics Karolinska (MDK), patient representatives, the Business Developers at the Cancer Theme and our employees who are trained OECI auditors. 

Jonas Bergh began by reflecting on the formation of Cancer Research KI, while Patrik Rossi told us that he had been in service for only three weeks when the audit team visited us in the autumn of 2019. Anita Wanngren talked about how it is to contribute to organisational development as a Patient and Family Expert and that the goal is increased quality of care reserach and education. Anita was recently elected as the first patient and carer representative on the Board of Directors of Karolinska CCC. 

Ann-Britt Johansson presented the timetable and process for re-accreditation and will act as project manager. Re-accreditation means that we do a self-assessment based on 345 standard questions covering both qualitative and quantitative measures. All the answers will be documented in an electronic tool and the goal is to finalise this and submit it by the end of May 2024. In connection with the accreditation, Karolinska submitted 483 documents. An audit visit from OECI will then take place probably in October 2024. Then we will receive an audit report and based on that, a new improvement plan will be developed. And our hope is that we will be re-certified as a CCC in March 2025.

Eva Jolly presented the actions carried out under the current improvement plan. It was positive to note that many improvements have been made, but there is still one area that requires attention, namely standardised documentation of deviations from treatment programmes.

Ann-Britt Johansson summarised the latest report from the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) which identified several strong areas. At the same time, concrete advice was given to address certain areas e.g. staffing of critical infrastructure, systematic funding plan to increase EU funding.

Marie Bothén presented the ongoing work to develop a strategy for Karolinska CCC. The work is done in order to formulate Karolinska CCC's vision and strategies and gathers several initiatives of strategies into a common document. 

Patrik Rossi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Karolinska CCC, summarised the day and pointed to a favourable situation with strong planning ahead. However, he emphasised that the re-accreditation will involve a thorough review of operations and that successful re-accreditation will require the implementation of improvements in all areas.