CARIBOU — Cary Medical Center has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for Hospital Accreditation by demonstrating continuous compliance with its performance standards.
The Gold Seal of Approval is a symbol of quality that reflects a health care organization’s commitment to providing safe and effective patient care.
The Caribou hospital underwent a rigorous, unannounced on-site survey in April of this year. During the review, a team of Joint Commission expert surveyors evaluated compliance with hospital standards related to several areas, including emergency management, environment of care, infection prevention and control, leadership, and medication management. Surveyors also conducted on-site observations and interviews.
The Joint Commission has accredited hospitals for more than 60 years. More than 4,000 general, children’s, long-term acute, psychiatric, rehabilitation and specialty hospitals currently maintain accreditation from the Joint Commission, awarded for a three-year period. In addition, approximately 360 critical access hospitals maintain accreditation through a separate program.
“Joint Commission Accreditation provides hospitals with the processes needed to improve in a variety of areas from the enhancement of staff education to the improvement of daily business operations,” said Mark G. Pelletier, RN, M.S., chief operating officer, Division of Accreditation and Certification Operations, The Joint Commission. “In addition, our accreditation helps hospitals enhance their risk management and risk reduction strategies. We commend Cary Medical Center for its efforts to become a quality improvement organization.”
Kris Doody, RN, MSB, and chief executive officer at Cary, said that receiving accreditation has a two-fold benefit for the hospital.
“Earning The Joint Commission Gold Seal is certainly something to celebrate with our staff who make it all possible”, said Doody. “The rigorous on-site survey really puts our people to the test and we have a philosophy at Cary to ‘always be prepared’ for the survey. But beyond the survey process the experts with The Joint Commission work closely with our staff providing insights into how we can improve processes or systems of care. They share best practices that they have observed from other hospitals and they often will use some of Cary’s approaches to specific areas of care and share them with other organizations. In the end the survey is a great learning and quality improvement event.”
The Joint Commission’s hospital standards are developed in consultation with health care experts and providers, measurement experts, and patients. The standards are informed by scientific literature and expert consensus to help hospital measure, assess and improve performance.
