About SheniEkimi Accreditation
SheniEkimi Accreditation is a voluntary quality and safety standard for non-hospital health and wellness facilities in Georgia. Its purpose is straightforward: to give the people who use these services a clear, independent signal that a facility is safe, honest and well run — and to give facilities a practical, evidence-based path to improve. It is the accessible first step for the smaller facilities that international accreditation leaves out — helping them keep pace on quality and safety rather than be left behind — and a springboard toward full international accreditation later.
Who we are
SheniEkimi (sheniekimi.ge) is the largest health-information portal in the Georgian language, trusted by hundreds of thousands of people who turn to it for clear, reliable health information. SheniEkimi Accreditation extends that mission from information to assurance — applying the same commitment to trustworthy, evidence-based health to the facilities people actually walk into.
Our background and track record
The Public Health Institute of Georgia (PHIG) was established in 2011 with a clear mission: to help build strong, modern healthcare-quality standards in Georgia. Over the following decade PHIG has worked at the intersection of academia, professional practice and public policy to bring international quality and safety standards into the Georgian health system.
A turning point was the Accreditation Georgia Initiative, launched jointly by PHIG and Accréditation Sans Frontières (ASF) in collaboration with David Tvildiani Medical University (DTMU). For the first time in the country, it brought together academia, local professional organisations and global accreditation bodies around a single goal — establishing healthcare accreditation in Georgia.
Between 2021 and 2022, more than 50 healthcare facilities voluntarily signed agreements with ASF to undergo pilot accreditation against an adapted Georgian standard, and in 2021 ASF accredited four of them — the first healthcare-facility accreditations the country had ever seen. In a setting that had never before experienced accreditation, this demonstrated its benefits, feasibility and sustainability to hospitals, professionals and policymakers alike.
The alliance also advocated for mandatory, independent international accreditation of healthcare institutions. After two years of sustained engagement — through public communication, academic work, dialogue with providers and professional associations, and extensive discussions with the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia — these efforts succeeded: in 2022 the Minister of Health issued a decree requiring independent international accreditation for all Georgian hospitals.
This groundwork enabled PHIG to establish an official partnership with Accreditation Canada (AC), one of the world’s largest and most established healthcare accreditation organisations, in January 2023. As AC’s partner in Georgia, PHIG has driven this process forward, and by 2023 9 Georgian hospitals had been accredited by Accreditation Canada — a clear and growing record of building accreditation in a country that had none before.
Continuing professional development
Strengthening the workforce is central to our mission. Through SheniAcademy — a Georgian-language continuing-education platform created jointly by PHIG, SheniEkimi and ASF — more than 5,000 health professionals have completed training and received certificates. Building on this, we are now expanding to a new bilingual (Georgian and English) platform at academy.gmj.ge: a joint continuing professional development (CPD) hub offering up to 100 online courses in Georgian and English, with blended modules — combining online learning with in-person sessions — to be added in 2026. PHIG has also supported more than 1,000 professionals with competency-based CME credit certificates as a pilot and, with Accreditation Canada in Georgia, plans to offer approximately 1,000 competency-based CME credits each year.
This expanded initiative brings together Public Health Institute of Georgia (PHIG), the Georgian Medical Journal (GMJ) and GMJ News, Accréditation Sans Frontières (ASF) and SheniEkimi, with the Accreditation Canada (AC) Georgia office as technical partner and David Tvildiani Medical University (DTMU) as academic partner.
Why this matters for SheniEkimi Accreditation. SheniEkimi Accreditation does not stand alone. It is built on this foundation — a public-health institute with more than a decade of standards work, an international accreditation partner (ASF), a medical university (DTMU), a peer-reviewed journal (GMJ), and an active partnership with Accreditation Canada. The expertise, methodology, technical capacity and resources behind the standard are established and real. For the smaller health and wellness facilities SheniEkimi serves, it extends the same quality-and-safety thinking PHIG has helped bring to Georgian hospitals — in a voluntary, accessible form.
Education built into accreditation
Accreditation and education are designed to work as one system. Each standard is paired with practical courses on GMJ Academy, so a facility can act on what the assessment reveals straight away. When staff complete a course they receive a certificate, and during accreditation these certificates are submitted as evidence — for example, every member of staff providing a hand-hygiene certificate. A few courses are required for accreditation; most are recommended. See how training works →
Our partners
SheniEkimi Accreditation is delivered by an alliance of established organisations:
How the standard was developed
The standard was developed jointly by Public Health Institute of Georgia (PHIG), which leads the scheme and issues accreditation; Accréditation Sans Frontières (ASF), bringing international accreditation methodology and cross-border experience; and the Georgian Medical Journal (GMJ), providing the scientific and editorial evidence base — with technical support from the Accreditation Canada (AC) Georgia office.
The frameworks behind it
In developing the standard we incorporated principles, standards and concepts drawn from internationally recognised sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua), and Accreditation Canada / HSO, alongside the relevant Laws of Georgia. Each sub-standard cites the published guidance on which it is based.
References to these organisations and their publications describe the external guidance that informed this standard. They do not imply endorsement, sponsorship, certification, affiliation with, or accreditation by any of these organisations.
The seven core standards
Accreditation follows the path a patient or client takes through a facility, organised into seven core standards, each with detailed sub-standards:
Standard 1 — Access & Arrival
The facility is easy to find, reach and enter safely — including for people with disabilities.
Standard 2 — Reception & Information
People are received respectfully and given clear, honest information about services, prices and their rights.
Standard 3 — Environment & Shared Spaces
Shared areas are clean, safe, well-ventilated and properly maintained.
Standard 4 — Care & Treatment
Care is delivered safely and competently — with proper hygiene, sterilisation, consent and qualified staff.
Standard 5 — Safety & Emergency Preparedness
The facility identifies and controls risks, and is ready to respond to emergencies.
Standard 6 — Aftercare & Follow-up
People receive clear aftercare and referral when needed, and can give feedback or raise a complaint.
Standard 7 — Governance & Management
The facility is well run — with proper records, policies, data protection and continuous improvement.
Our principles
SheniEkimi Accreditation is voluntary and encouraging — not a regulator, and not a punishment. A certificate is valid for twelve months and covers one physical address. The facility self-declares and holds full responsibility for its services; SheniEkimi confirms the assessment and, for Gold, an on-site visit — it does not approve any individual drug or product.