Our hospital was given the challenge of being the first hospital in the state of Johor to achieve accreditation status. With trepidation but determination, we accepted the challenge and never looked back.

Our journey was launched on 2nd May 2000 with a simple ceremony officiated by our Deputy State Medical Director (Medical Services), Dr. Santakj a/l Gandara Singh. On the same day, all the heads of departments and units attended an awareness training and workshops on the what, why, who, when and how of the Malaysian Hospital Accreditation Programme. Fuelled up by this, we planned our strategy, charted our paths and set our targets.

We set up our management teams, elected coordinators at hospital, departmental/unit and sectional levels of staff and studied the accreditation standards until we knew them by the back of our hands. After doing a self evaluation, we worked purposefully to overcome out shortfalls. Everything was put under a magnifying glass and no stone was left unturned. Quality was the key word be it policies, procedures, systems, documents, service or personnel. Weekly meetings were held to brainstorm, tackle problems, motivate and keep everything and everyone on target.

But it was not all work and no play. In the midst of out fever, we took two well deserved breaks one on 30th July 2000 to 1st August 2000 to visit our sister hospital, Hospital Seberang Jaya, and another on 30th January 2001 to Hospital Melaka to gain some insight on their strengths and our weaknesses.

Finally after our own internal pre-survey, we invited Hospital Melaka to do a Mock Survey on 11th to 13th December 2001. The Mock Survey was invaluable in opening our eyes to many more flaws in our system and after another feverish month of correcting, perfecting and polishing, we were finally ready to face our surveyors. Our privatised support services gave us their fullest cooperation and the hospital staff from the highest to the lowest level showed what self sacrifice and team spirit really meant.

On 22nd to 24th January 2003, seven (7) surveyors and three observers from MSQH arrived for the Accreditation Survey. During the same period, MSQH arranged for a study visit to Hospital Batu Pahat by 12 delegates from the Indonesian government and stakeholders under the World Bank—Provincial Health Project sheme to look into the Malaysian Hospital Accreditation Programme. Hospital Batu Pahat was indeed under close scrutiny from all quarters. After three nerve wrecking days of evaluation, we sat at Summation Conference faint from fatigue and apprehension. So did we meet the standards or not? Overall , the surveyors' comments seemed favourable but they were not telling. We waited in suspense for the results. Finally the good news came at the end of March 2002. Hospital Batu Pahat was accorded the full 3-year accreditation status - the first hospital in Johor to be accredited!

The Accreditation Award was presented on 4th October 2002 by Y. B. Datin Paduka Siti Sa'diah binti Sheikh Bakir, the President of MSQH to Y. B. Tan Sri Datu Dr. Hj. Mohamed Taha bin Arif, the Director General,of Health, Malaysia and then to the Director of Hospital Batu Pahat at a special ceremony held in conjunction with our Hari ‘Q'.

The success of our hospital has resulted in Hospital Batu Pahat being designated the training center for the Hospital Accreditation Programme for other hospitals in Johor. In fact, our fame has spread far and wide and numerous public and private hospitals from within and outside of Johor have requested to make study trips to our hospital. This has strengthened our resolve to not only maintain our standards of services but to continuously seek to improve.