Bon Secours St. Francis 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 is a symbol of quality that reflects a health care organization’s commitment to providing safe and quality patient care.
St. Francis Medical Center underwent a rigorous, unannounced onsite review on September 29 – October 2, 2020. During the visit, a team of Joint Commission reviewers evaluated compliance with hospital standards spanning several areas emergency management, environment of care, infection prevention and control, leadership, medication management, and rights and responsibilities of the individual.
The Joint Commission’s standards are developed in consultation with health care experts and providers, measurement experts and patients. They are informed by scientific literature and expert consensus to help health care organizations measure, assess and improve performance. The surveyors also conducted onsite observations and interviews.
“As a private accreditor, The Joint Commission surveys health care organizations to protect the public by identifying deficiencies in care and working with those organizations to correct them as quickly and sustainably as possible,” says Mark Pelletier, RN, MS, chief operating officer, Accreditation and Certification Operations, and chief nursing executive, The Joint Commission. “We commend St. Francis Medical Center for its continuous quality improvement efforts in patient safety and quality of care.”
To assure a successful accreditation visit, St. Francis Medical Center established a plan with a timeline for preparation activities. Responsibility of each category of standard was assigned to facility chapter leads to ensure St. Francis’ practice was in alignment with the standards. St. Francis also identified areas of opportunity with compliance of the standards through completing a facility mock survey with system leaders. The team developed and implemented a plan to achieve compliance of the identified areas, incorporated standards into day-to-day work, educated all staff on ways the organization could meet the standards to facilitate compliance such as completing daily clean sweeps, and promoted patient safety and compliance through obtaining disease-specific care certification in Stroke, Joint Hip and Knee, and Palliative Care.
St. Francis Medical Center is a 130-bed acute-care hospital with an array of health care services located in Midlothian, Virginia and serves the extensive and growing communities south of the James River.