The nation's leading healthcare accrediting agency recently evaluated and awarded Community Hospital with a three-year accreditation.

By demonstrating compliance with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's national standards for health care quality and safety, Community Hospital has earned the Joint Commission's Gold Seal of Approval(tm).

Two JCAHO surveyors, a physician and registered nurse, conducted an on-site survey of the hospital, home health/hospice services and both rural health clinics located in Trenton and Curtis on March 23-25.

"We sought accreditation for our organization because we want to demonstrate our commitment to patient safety and quality care," says Gary Bieganski, Community Hospital President. "We view obtaining Joint Commission accreditation as a continual step toward achieving excellence. We want to publicly thank our employees for their dedication to quality and patient safety," he added.

Community Hospital received an excellent exit report from the Joint Commission surveyors, according to Cathleen Jensen, chairman of the Community Hospital JCAHO committee. "The hospital and home health/hospice services were reviewed against more than 600 JCAHO standards," she said. "Of those standards, we received only six Requirements for Improvement and four Supplemental Findings." Some of those RFI's were corrected while the surveyors were conducting the survey or were already in the process of being changed. The rest must be corrected within 90 days. The six RFI's were related to signage, documentation and additional security measures.

"The surveyors were very impressed with our facility and our staff," she said. "They continually commented on the cleanliness of the facility and our friendly staff. They were also very impressed with how advanced technologically Community Hospital was." She said they saw technology in place at Community Hospital that surpassed a 1000-bed hospital the physician surveyor had recently surveyed. After the data tracer presentation, the nurse surveyor suggested Community Hospital apply for a national JCAHO award for patient safety and quality which recognizes major achievements of individuals and organizations in improving patient safety and quality.

The award of accreditation is for a three-year period ending March 2008. Community Hospital has sought and received accreditation from JCAHO for more than 30 years. "We are pleased to have received the Joint Commission's accreditation for so many years because we believe it holds us to a higher standard of care," Bieganski said.

 "Above all, the national standards are intended to stimulate continuous, systematic and organization-wide improvement in an organization's performance and the outcomes of care," says Kurt Patton, executive director, Hospital Accreditation Program, Joint Commission. "The community should be proud that Community Hospital is focusing on the most challenging goal -- to continuously raise quality and safety to higher levels."

Founded in 1951, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations seeks to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation and related services that support performance improvement in health care organizations. The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, including 7,800 hospitals and home care organizations, and more than 7,300 other health care organizations that provide long term care, assisted living, behavioral health care, laboratory and ambulatory care services.