January 3, 2013

Martha Jefferson Hospital is receiving some honors. In this week's Martha Jefferson Healthwise report CBS19's Stephanie Satchell found out more about the hospital's latest accreditation and what it means for patients.

A new accreditation now hangs on the wall at Martha Jefferson Hospital. It's from DNV Healthcare Inc. The accreditation agency is one of a few different agencies out there that surveys everything a hospital does.

“We look at every process, every system and every policy and every procedure and they look at how you practice that. Then they measure you against very high quality standards,” said Susan Cabell-Mains, VP of Human Resources.”

Not only is this type of accreditation required for the hospital, it also benefits patients.

“We want to look at how do we provide the most efficient and most productive way we can and look at how we provide the best service we can. We obviously don't want people waiting in the emergency department or waiting to get a test done,” said Cabell-Mains.

The hospital's stroke program which is fairly new also received the DNV accreditation for its practices.

“So there are certain standards about stroke protocols and if you come in to the emergency department with any symptoms that look like a stroke there are certain time frames that you need to meet in order to get certain medications and a number of different practices and procedures that we need to follow.

Although, the hospital and stroke program received this accreditation this year, it's something they'll have to continuously work on always looking for ways to meet and improve quality and safety standards.