HON Quality Management

HON Quality Management System	pdf version

The Health On the Net Foundation as an organization enforcing a quality ensuring code of conduct for health websites, strives to continuously improve the quality of its’ services through numerous ways. Measures for internal and external quality assurance have been established with HON for years but recently HON took steps to improve the system in respect of the stringent standards such as the EN 45011/ISO65 norm.

HON is a pioneering organisation in promoting and deploying reliable online medical information through the enforcement of its code of conduct, the HONcode. Since its formation in 1995, it has continuously strived for not only, quality assurance of the websites it reviews, but also its services provided, including and especially the HONcode accreditation process.
In addition to the internal annual inspection in respect to the quality assurance, HON too is now also inspected on a regular basis by neutral, qualified organisations according to stringent norms like EN45011/ISO65 enforced by internationally recognized and independent private or governmental accrediting organizations. This thereby assures that the HON certification system fulfils the most stringent internationally recognised standards.
It also demonstrates the willingness of HON to collaborate with official bodies, like the recent collaboration of HON at the Governmental level in France with Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) for accreditation of all French health websites. “Being externally evaluated by independent organizations and receiving accreditation according to internationally recognised norms provides HON with further international validation and recognition” Celia Boyer, Executive Director of HON said.

Standards of quality are applied for all HON personnel through fulfilment of required criteria during recruitment, formal training, internal auditing both regular and ad hoc and documentation of all HON procedures In addition, HON now engages in new activities such as the Complaint Handling and Tracking system, the Automatic Difference Tracker that enhance the trust in the reliability of HON’s accreditation activities and at the same time make them more transparent to online medical and health publishers as well as consumers. In order to improve its quality and respond to the needs of our users (Internet editors and consumers) HON encourages you to help us by participating in our questionnaire and the HON blog which is an upcoming feature and will soon be online. (Please check regularly)

“We will continue to improve both the quantity and quality of services provided, with our constant and ultimate goal being to create a universally accessible online pool of trustworthy and reliable medical information” Boyer added.