Union General Hospital, Inc. has obtained quality-based accreditation from DNV GL – Healthcare for the second time. DNV GL’s innovative program integrates ISO 9001 compliance with the Medicare Conditions of Participation (COPs).
“Accreditation has always been vital to our financial well-being and a symbol of our dedication to quality. But we have been looking forward to taking the next step in accreditation,” says Union General Hospital CEO, Lewis Kelley. “We believe the DNV GL program is more closely aligned with the COPs and takes the whole process to another level with ISO 9001.”
ISO 9001 is the preeminent quality management system used by people-intensive businesses around the world. A growing number of U.S. hospitals are embracing ISO as a way to identify, standardize and then continually improve upon the most successful approaches to patient care, billing and other critical aspects of running a modern hospital.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires accreditation for hospitals seeking reimbursement for care provided to patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Without accreditation, most hospitals would only be able to support a fraction of the patient populations they now serve.
CMS maintains a highly rigorous process of assessing and approving accreditation providers, which more than 60 years since the inception of Medicare still numbers fewer than five.
DNV GL’s accreditation program, called NIAHO® (Integrated Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations), involves annual hospital surveys – instead of every three years – and encourages hospitals to openly share information across departments and to discover improvements in clinical workflows and safety protocols.
“We want hospitals to succeed and we don’t believe accreditation should be an inspection just looking for faults,” says Patrick Horine, president of DNV GL – Healthcare. “Our entire approach is predicated on innovation and continuous improvement.”
About DNV GL – Healthcare
DNV GL 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 16,000 professionals are dedicated to helping our customers make the world safer, smarter and greener. For more information about DNV GL hospital accreditation, visit www.dnvglhealthcare.com.
