Accreditation is an important indicator of excellent medical care

Dr. Bar­bara Evert, MD

For hos­pi­tals nation­wide, accred­i­ta­tion is an impor­tant indi­ca­tor of excel­lent med­ical care. It reas­sures patients and the com­mu­nity that hos­pi­tals are meet­ing and often exceed­ing national qual­ity and safety stan­dards for care. It also helps hos­pi­tals recruit excel­lent physi­cians, nurses and other skilled caregivers.

The stan­dards against which hos­pi­tals are reviewed for accred­i­ta­tions are estab­lished by nation­ally rec­og­nized pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions and per­formed by inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tors. Some of these reviews are man­dated by fed­eral and state gov­ern­ment for licen­sure and reimbursement.

It is impor­tant for the pub­lic to know that each accred­i­ta­tion a hos­pi­tal receives puts its qual­ity on par with other accred­ited hos­pi­tals through­out the coun­try. Accred­i­ta­tion raises the bar to the high­est stan­dard of care and lev­els the play­ing field for all accred­ited hos­pi­tals, big and small.

At Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal, we wel­come these out­side val­i­da­tions. They under­score our strengths, show­ing us where we are meet­ing or exceed­ing national stan­dards, and they pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for improve­ment so we can con­tin­u­ously adopt the lat­est best practices.

As a Delaware res­i­dent, we feel it’s impor­tant that you know Grady has accred­i­ta­tions for all aspects of its clin­i­cal oper­a­tions, from breast imag­ing and lab­o­ra­tory ser­vices to heart and can­cer care. In many cases, these accred­i­ta­tions come with com­men­da­tions that rec­og­nize Grady to be a supe­rior per­former com­pared to its peers.

Here are just a few of the areas where we excel, accord­ing to accred­it­ing organizations:

Can­cer care — The Amer­i­can Col­lege of Sur­geons’ Com­mis­sion on Can­cer approved Grady as a Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal Can­cer Pro­gram with Com­men­da­tion for pro­vid­ing diag­nos­tic and treat­ment ser­vices through­out the con­tin­uum of care.

Surgery, pneu­mo­nia care — Grady is just one of 14 hos­pi­tals in Ohio, and among just 14 per­cent nation­wide, to be named by The Joint Com­mis­sion as a Top Per­former of Key Qual­ity Mea­sures. Specif­i­cally, we were com­mended for the qual­ity of care we pro­vide our pneu­mo­nia patients and all of our surgery patients. The Joint Com­mis­sion is a not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tion that accred­its more than 19,000 health­care orga­ni­za­tions in the United States. Its accred­i­ta­tion is rec­og­nized as a con­di­tion for licen­sure by state gov­ern­ments and for the receipt of Med­ic­aid reimbursements.

Chest Pain — Grady has been accred­ited as a Chest Pain Cen­ter by the Soci­ety of Chest Pain Cen­ters — an inter­na­tional non-profit soci­ety ded­i­cated to the elim­i­na­tion of heart dis­ease — for its out­stand­ing treat­ment of patients who present with heart attack symp­toms. The accred­i­ta­tion rep­re­sents a coor­di­na­tion of ser­vices among regional EMS, our emer­gency depart­ment and inpa­tient facil­ity in a sys­tem­atic fash­ion that con­forms to national best prac­tices, includ­ing speed of care.

Imag­ing — Grady recently earned a pres­ti­gious breast MRI accred­i­ta­tion from the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Radi­ol­ogy. The col­lege also has accred­ited our Imag­ing Depart­ment for all other modal­i­ties includ­ing con­ven­tional mam­mog­ra­phy, CT, ultra­sound, vas­cu­lar ultra­sound and nuclear medicine.

Lab­o­ra­tory — Our Pathol­ogy and Clin­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries are accred­ited by The Joint Com­mis­sion for meet­ing national stan­dards in health­care qual­ity and patient safety. The Cen­ters for Medicare & Med­ic­aid Ser­vices Clin­i­cal Lab­o­ra­tory Improve­ment Amend­ments ensures qual­ity lab­o­ra­tory test­ing and cer­ti­fies us to receive Medicare and Med­ic­aid payments.

Reha­bil­i­ta­tion – The Com­mis­sion on Accred­i­ta­tion of Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Ser­vices rec­og­nizes Grady for pro­vid­ing excel­lence in adult reha­bil­i­ta­tive care, cit­ing seven areas of exem­plary performance.

Dr. Bar­bara Evert is vice pres­i­dent of Med­ical Affairs at Grady Memo­r­ial Hospital.

Posted by Grady Memorial Hospital on Mar 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.