Global Healthcare Accreditation and GBAC Announce Partnership

The Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC), a Division of ISSA, and the Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) Program for Medical Travel Services are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate in the development of a joint GBAC STAR™ Facility/GHA accreditation program for hotels and resorts serving medical and wellness travel guests.

The unique collaboration between GBAC and GHA for hotel accreditation is designed to leverage each organization’s strengths to benefit travelers around the globe by:

• Providing a third-party survey review and trusted joint GBAC STAR/GHA seal to accredited hotels that builds trust, confidence, and comfort for medical travel and wellness guests
• Assisting medical travel and wellness guests to understand and use appropriate safety protocols for travel and accommodation prior to and post travel, as well as during treatment
• Assuring guests that the hotel has been cleaned and disinfected to the highest standards.
• Providing assurance to medical travelers and wellness guests that the hotel meets the cultural, dietary, religious, handicapped access, and other unique needs of the guests/patients
• Instilling peace of mind that proper cleaning is an ongoing facility management priority
• Ensuring protocols are in place to manage medical emergencies of medical travel and wellness guests at the hotel
• Increasing the confidence of medical travel and wellness guests in selecting an infectious disease-free hotel, and to feel comfortable during their stay.

“Hotel accommodation is an important component of the medical travel and wellness guest experience; in fact, medical travelers and their companions often spend more time at a hotel than at the hospital or clinic,” said Karen Timmons, GHA CEO. “As travel resumes, as a result of COVID-19, hotels seeking to target these growing tourism markets must provide assurance and peace of mind to prospective guests that the property complies with recognized industry-wide hotel cleaning and sanitation standards required by COVID-19, as well as customer experience and safety protocols specific to the needs and expectations of medical travel and wellness guests.”

The performance-based GBAC STAR Facility Accreditation Program enables facilities to create and maintain an effective cleaning, disinfection, and infectious disease prevention program. To achieve GBAC STAR accreditation, facilities must demonstrate compliance with the program’s requirements and place responsibility for facilities to demonstrate that appropriate cleaning;, disinfection: and infectious disease prevention work practices, protocols, procedures, and systems have been established and implemented.

“We are very pleased to work with GHA to positively impact medical travel and wellness guests and the hotels where they stay,” said GBAC Executive Director Patricia Olinger. “GBAC STAR provides third-party validation that ensures hotels—and commercial and public facilities of all sizes—implement strict protocols for biorisk situations. Accreditation empowers facility owners and managers to assure workers, customers, and key stakeholders that they have proven systems in place to deliver clean and healthy environments that are safe for business.”