The Accreditation Canada program: a complementary tool to promote accountability in Canadian healthcare.

Across Canada and internationally, the public and governments at all levels have increasing expectations for quality of care, value for healthcare dollars and accountability. Within this reality, there is increasing recognition of the value of accreditation as a barometer of quality and as a tool to assess and improve accountability and efficiency in healthcare delivery. In this commentary, we show how three key attributes of the Accreditation Canada Qmentum accreditation program--measurement, scalability and currency - promote accountability in healthcare.