Oak Lawn, Ill. – Advocate Christ Medical Center has achieved national accreditation from DNV Healthcare, the only hospital accreditation program approved by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that integrates the ISO 9001 Quality Management System with the Medicare Conditions of Participation.
The medical center also earned certification from DNV Healthcare as a primary stroke center.
DNV’s NIAHO® (National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations) accreditation program requires a hospital to evaluate the continuum of patient care throughout its facilities and take measured steps to improve when warranted.
“The DNV program is more consistent with our long-term commitment to patient safety and total quality,” said William Adair, MD, vice president for clinical transformation at Christ Medical Center. “The ability to integrate ISO 9001 quality disciplines with our clinical and financial processes is a significant step forward.”
DNV Healthcare awarded accreditation and stroke certification to Christ Medical Center following a week-long, on-site survey of the campus earlier this year. The DNV hospital accreditation program addresses the demands on today’s hospitals to deliver patient-centered care, because, as part of the accreditation process, DNV surveyors visit a hospital annually instead of every three years as accreditation programs have done in the past. The surveyors monitor the hospital’s adherence to patient-safety criteria as established by CMS and evaluate processes that impact patient care across various departments and facilities of the hospital.
“This is a collaborative process,” Dr. Adair said. “The DNV program helps us find opportunities throughout the organization to improve every day. We now look at accreditation as a strategic business tool and a mechanism to empower our staff.”
Being accredited by DNV allows Christ Medical Center to receive reimbursement for patients who are covered by the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs. The DNV NIAHO® accreditation program was authorized by CMS in 2008. Today, DNV provides both hospital accreditation and Primary Stroke Center certification.
Christ Medical Center now has three year to become compliant with the ISO 9001:2008 standards in order to maintain accreditation with DNV.
ISO 9001:2008 refer to the International Standard for Quality Management Systems. It provides a company or organization with a set of principles for the management of activities to achieve customer satisfaction consistently.
“We are confident that Advocate Christ Medical Center will attain full compliance with ISO 9001:2008 standards,” Dr. Adair said. That confidence stems from the “cultural change that has affected our entire organization.
“Not only has there been a consistent and constant urgency to improve in everything that we do as physicians and associates for the sake and safety of our patients, but a lack of satisfaction with the status quo. We may have received recognition for what we did yesterday, but we know we can still do better today, and we are always looking for ways to achieve that,” he said.
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About Advocate Christ Medical Center
Advocate Christ Medical Center is part of Advocate Health Care, which is one of the nation’s leading health care networks. A not-for-profit, 694-bed, premier teaching institution with more than 1,000 affiliated physicians, Christ Medical Center is a leader in health care and one of the major referral hospitals in the Midwest in a number of specialties, including cardiovascular services, heart and kidney transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, orthopedics and women’s health. The hospital also has one of the busiest Level I trauma centers in Illinois providing emergency care for more than 90,000 patient visits annually and is a leader in breakthrough technologies, including eICU® (electronic intensive care unit) monitoring, robotic da Vinci Surgery System® and CyberKnife® Radiosurgery. In both 2012 and 2013, the medical center was named to the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals®, while U.S. News & World Report ranked the medical center among the nation’s leading providers for cardiology and heart surgery and for geriatric medicine and ranked it fourth overall among hospitals in the state of Illinois. The hospital is also recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) as a Magnet Center. Magnet status represents the highest honor in the nursing profession. To obtain more information or to visit our newsroom, log on to: www.advocatehealth.com/christ
About DNV Healthcare
DNV Healthcare Inc. is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is part of Det Norske Veritas, a global independent foundation dedicated to safeguarding life, property and the environment. For more information about DNV Healthcare and its NIAHO® hospital accreditation program, visit http://www.dnvaccreditation.com