HOUSTON – The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced last week its approval of the first new hospital accreditation organization in more than 30 years.

The decision allows DNV Healthcare Inc., a division of the Norwegian company Det Norske Veritas, to immediately begin determining if hospitals are in compliance with the Medicare Conditions of Participation.

DNV joins the Joint Commission and the American Osteopathic Association as the only national hospital accreditors approved by CMS. The company's authority to accredit hospitals will run through September 26, 2012.

As part of the CMS approval process, DNV's accreditation program - called NIAHO - was implemented in multiple hospitals across the country and demonstrated its effectiveness to U.S. healthcare officials.

NIAHO is the acronym for National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations. To date, 22 U.S. hospitals have been accredited by NIAHO.

"The entire market has reached a turning point," said Yehuda Dror, president of DNV Healthcare. "Now hospitals can choose to integrate proven quality systems into an annual accreditation process that is less complicated to administer. Based on its design and feedback from DNV's currently accredited hospitals, we believe NIAHO will have a positive and measurable impact on patient safety, financial performance and the overall quality of healthcare services."