In Fall 2019, six Joint Commission healthcare surveyors visited Bristol Health to conduct a review that monitored how well Bristol Health staff:
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Provide a safe environment for patient care
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Provide education about patient risks and options for diagnosis and treatment
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Protect patient privacy and rights
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Evaluate patient conditions before, during and after diagnosis and treatment
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Protect patients against infections; and
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Plan for emergency situations
The Joint Commission is a United States-based nonprofit organization that accredits more than 22,000 US health care organizations and programs. The on-site evaluation assesses compliance and verifies improvement activities.
On January 3, 2020 The Joint Commission, once again, confirmed the great work that is done at Bristol Health by granting us an accreditation decision for:
Our accreditation is effective beginning September 21, 2019 and is valid for up to 36 months. This is a significant milestone for Bristol Health as accreditation by The Joint Commission is considered the gold standard in health care.
Our 4-day survey concluded with one surveyor reading from a speech that Donald Berwick, Former Administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2004,
"And, we will celebrate. Starting with pizza and ending with champagne. We will celebrate ourselves because the patients whose lives we save cannot join us, because their names can never be known. Our contribution will be what did not happen to them. And, though they are unknown, we will know that mothers and fathers are at graduations and weddings they would have missed, and that grandchildren will know grandparents they might never have known, and holidays will be taken and work completed and books read and symphonies heard and gardens tended that, without our work, would have been only beds of weeds."