Looking to gain more from its hospital accreditation program, Norton Healthcare has joined with DNV GL Healthcare National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations (NIAHO) for hospital accreditation.
DNV GL’s world-leading innovative accreditation program integrates International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 compliance with the Medicare conditions of participation (CoPs). It is designed to empower everyone in an organization — from top leadership to the front-line staff — to contribute new ideas. It’s more than just another way to validate Medicare compliance and find issues to fix — it’s designed to engage leadership, providers and employees in the shared commitment to enhance and continuously improve quality and patient safety.
“Accreditation has always been a symbol of our dedication to quality and is vital to our financial well-being. Norton Healthcare’s board of trustees and executive leadership have been looking to take the next step in accreditation,” said James M. Frazier, M.D., vice president, medical affairs, Norton Healthcare. “We believe the DNV GL program is more closely aligned with the CoPs and takes the whole process to another level with the incorporation of ISO 9001.”
ISO 9001 is the preeminent quality management system used by organizations worldwide seeking to improve the quality of their products and services and consistently meet their customers’ expectations. A growing number of U.S. hospitals are embracing ISO 9001 as a way to identify, standardize and then continually improve on the most successful approaches to patient care, billing and other critical aspects of running a modern hospital.
DNV GL helps health care customers achieve excellence by improving quality and patient safety through hospital accreditation, managing infection risk, management system certification and training.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & 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.
DNV GL’s integrated accreditation program of health care organizations, called NIAHO, 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,” said Patrick Horine, president, DNV GL Healthcare. “Our entire approach is predicated on innovation and continuous improvement.”