Archive for the ‘The Joint Commission’ Category

I am very pleased and proud to report that Mendocino Coast District Hospital has completed it’s triennial Joint Commission survey for our critical access hospital and for Life Safety Code.  Our Home Health department is also being surveyed.  Home Health will be completed later today.  The Joint Commission (TJC) conducts a 2-day survey for critical access hospitals, in which patient care is examined closely by having a trained surveyor follow patients as they move from department to department within the hospital.  1 patient was followed from the hospital’s North Coast Family Health Center (NCFHC)  into the hospital for an outpatient procedure.  At last Friday’s Exit Conference, Survey Team Leader, Gayle Nash, RN commended our staff for doing a very good job of providing quality health care.  She said that the NCFHC patient that she followed was extremely appreciative of the care that they received and got emotional when talking about the importance of our hospital.  Ms. Nash said that there were no major deficiencies found during the survey and that the findings were about average for a Joint Commission accredited hospital.   She added that “MCDH did well in that it had only 1 National Patient Safety Goal deficiency, no medication findings, very little findings in infection control and we were perfect in data.”  She concluded her remarks on Friday by saying that she is very impressed by MCDH’s low patient fall rate and our infection control plan. 

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Demonstration at recent Health Fair

On November 16 and 17 Mendocino Coast District Hospital underwent our eagerly awaited Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations survey.  The Joint Commission (TJC) is a National organization, created by the American Hospital Associaton, the American Medical Associationsent and the American College of Physicians nearly 60 years ago.  It surveys over 17,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States.  The Joint Commission’s number 1 priority is patient safety.  We were visited by 3 surveyors.  1 surveyor was dedicated to Life Safety Code compliance.  He was here for the first day only.  The other 2 surveyors included a Team Leader (who was a former critical access hospital CEO) and a Home Health surveyor.  They were here for 2 days. Our staff described this year’s survey as a very positive experience, in which surveyors collaborated with our staff to improve our patient care delivery systems.  A written report of the survey was received on November 24.  It documented that MCDH did very well during they survey and has relatively few corrective actions to take.  During the 2-day process, surveyors commented many times during the time that they were here of how many “best practices” they discovered here.  Some of the best practices included sample medication storage at NCFHC, our Guided Imagery CDs in surgery and our anti coagulation clinic to mention a few.  Our staff did a great job.  Susan Bivins, in particular, is to be commended for an excellent job of preparation. (more…)