The Health Information and Quality Authority Achieves ISO9001

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is an independent authority established to drive high-quality and safe care for people using health and social care services in Ireland.

HIQA’s mandate extends across a specified range of public, private and voluntary sector services. Reporting to the Minister for Health and engaging with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Affairs, HIQA’s role is to develop standards, inspect and review health and social care services and support informed decisions on how services are delivered.

As part of its strategic planning process, HIQA identified the need to implement a robust and externally audited Quality Management standard. Having considered the options, HIQA decided that achieving certification to ISO9001:2015 was the best approach and set about the journey of seeking a trusted adviser to assist. Quadra successfully tendered for and were awarded the project to assist HIQA in the process.

The project started with a gap analysis, which was used to assess how closely HIQA’s controls and processes aligned with the requirements of ISO9001. This gap analysis provided a very reassuring result and the decision was taken to progress towards full certification to the standard. Quadra assisted with the implementation project from start to finish and worked closely with the Quality and Risk and Compliance team to develop a robust Quality Management System structure for the entire organisation. The project also included a full readiness review which simulated the external audit and indicated that the organisation was ready for external certification. External certification was successfully achieved in November 2023 and was awarded by SGS. Commenting on the assistance provided by Quadra Kathleen Lombard Head of Quality, Risk and Compliance with HIQA said:

“Quadra’s guidance and support throughout our ISO certification journey was invaluable. It helped us prepare in a systematic way that led us to successful implementation of our QMS and ultimately ISO certification.”