Can a hospital’s accrediting organization make a difference in the quality of care and overall operations?
According to executives with three major hospital systems throughout the United States, the answer is an unequivocal “yes.”
Executives with University of Utah Health, Sentara Healthcare and Houston Methodist Healthcare all discussed how their experiences with DNV GL Healthcare helped raise the bar on quality of care in a webinar recently hosted by MCOL.
Iris Lundy, director of health equity for Sentara Healthcare, a 16-hospital system in Virginia, discussed how the organization’s certification in ISO 9001 allowed it to standardize many processes throughout the system. ISO 9001 is a quality management system DNV GL adapted for healthcare delivery. Sentara is a leader in reducing the use of patient restraints in the hospital setting.
Lori Flies, director of system accreditation and regulatory affairs for Houston Methodist, a seven-hospital system, discussed how it was able to enhance oversight of quality, as well as heighten the engagement of the system’s leadership, including the board of directors. It did so with a combination of risk-taking and intensive interdepartmental audits.
“The largest benefit (of working with DNV GL Healthcare) has been the cultural transformation, where quality went from being the quality department’s job to being everyone’s job in the organization,” said Robert C. Pendleton, M.D., the chief medical quality officer for the four-hospital University of Utah Health system. “It moved us from being reactive to proactive.” The changes empowered staff to innovate to address patient care issues as needed.
An audio/video link to the webinar, “The Power Of Accreditation: How A New Model Can Spur Hospitals To Success,” may be accessed here.
Hundreds of hospitals across the United States have switched to DNV GL Healthcare over the past decade, making it the nation’s fastest-growing accrediting body, with over 500 hospitals accredited in North America.
“We want to identify innovative practices and approaches to address aspects that improve quality, efficiency and enhance patient care,” said Gary Davis, DNV GL Business Assurance North American Regional Manager. “Our success is attributable to the unique approach we take with our hospital customers to use the quality management system to their advantage.”
ABOUT DNV GL
DNV GL Business Assurance is a world-leading certification body. We help businesses assure the performance of their organizations, products, people, facilities and supply chains through certification, verification, assessment, and training services. Within healthcare we help our customers achieve excellence by improving quality and patient safety through hospital accreditation, managing infection risk, management system certification and training.
The DNV GL Group operates in more than 100 countries. Our 12,500 professionals are dedicated to helping our customers make the world safer, smarter and greener. www.dnvglcert.com/healthcare.
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