ABSTRACT
Wendy Nicklin is the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Accreditation Canada. She also serves as the institutional representative for Accreditation Canada on the International Society for Quality (ISQua) Board of Directors, and is past Chair of its Accreditation Council. Wendy Nicklin has written numerous articles promoting accreditation, how it can help improve healthcare quality and safety worldwide with a focus on the Canadian healthcare system. Examples include how Accreditation Canada’s Qmentum program is used to examine the performance of long-term care facilities in Ontario (Nicklin and Mitchell, 2012), and how accreditation has a positive impact on healthcare quality and safety (Nicklin, 2012b). She describes the programs that Accreditation Canada offers and how they have evolved over time based on research, healthcare trends, expert advice, organizational feedback, and public needs, to help ensure national standards are met and/or exceeded. She outlines how accreditation helps organizations develop and implement a plan of quality improvement, to ensure patients are receiving the best quality health care possible. While Wendy Nicklin is involved in important international quality and safety initiatives, her primary focus is Canada. She works continuously to improve the relevance and value-add of accreditation, ensuring that Accreditation Canada offers the best accreditation programs (Omentum, Primer, Distinction) possible to meet the needs of Canada’s changing healthcare system.
