MANITOULIN—The Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC) has not only achieved accreditation certification from Accreditation Canada for the next four years, it received the highest standard result available.
“Our accreditation results have come in and we have achieved our accreditation,” stated Derek Graham, chief executive officer of the MHC, last week. We had a rating of over 96 percent in standards met and achieved all required organizational practices, which is very important as it focuses on our work in potential high risk and safety areas.”
The accreditation is provided through Accreditation Canada, “which provides these accreditation services in Canada and other countries as well,” said Mr. Graham. “There are three levels of accreditation and we achieved the highest standing.”
Mr. Graham said the actual accreditation process begins prior to inspectors arriving at the MHC’s two hospital sites on Manitoulin. “They review documentation that we have to provide, then they meet the various teams, boards, service range care teams, clinical departments, patients and some of our other health care partners. They (Accreditation Canada) ask questions around the MHC, in terms of our approach to care, and our being patient-centred. They also work with our staff, for instance physicians, nurses and other care staff, walking through a situation with a patient, step-by-step and being provided information on what actions are taken when a patient suffers a heart attack, for instance. They also go through medical, employment records, an external validation and look at our quality system.”
Mr. Graham said the accreditation “is also very important if you want to be a teaching site, for clinical, nursing and medical students.”
Since receiving the accreditation certification, “we have identified and thanked all those internally and across the board and all our health partners,” said Mr. Graham. “Because of the depth of what we do, without the tremendous teamwork and buy-in we have not only internally but with our many health care partners, we would not achieve this accreditation. And while we have now been accredited for four years, we are only as good as our next report. We keep moving forward with our partners to provide continuous health care improvement for our patients.”
