Survey says ... UCMC is perfect!

By SCOTT BAUGHMANLedger Staff Writerscottb@gaffneyledger.com

Stephanie Holland and Ashley Jones inspect X-ray results in the radiology department of Upstate Carolina Medical Center. Pitching a perfect game or making a hole in one are rare occurrences. This week, Upstate Carolina Medical Center (UCMC) employees experienced the thrill of reaching that pinnacle of success as the hospital received perfect marks on a national survey.

“These are just the preliminary results, of course, but we’re very pleased,” said Joe Howell, the CEO at UCMC. “The final results will be published in a few months, but during our meeting with the survey team they had nothing but good news for us.”

The 125-bed hospital has completed a 2 1/2-day survey administered by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations

JCAHO), the gold standard for healthcare quality benchmarks. The hospital was the first in the nation so far this year to achieve such a prestigious score. Receiving accreditation from the JCAHO is key for many reasons, not the least of which is that it affects the facility’s eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements from the federal government.

“We’ve done well for the past three years on this,” said Steve Wong, who handles public relations for the hospital.

But this time they came to that meeting and said they really had nothing to talk about. That means they didn’t find any problems with our hospital. In fact, one of them said to me, ‘You have a gem of a hospital here in Gaffney.’ You can’t ask for a better result than that.”

To conduct the survey, the team used a technique known as the tracer method.

“This is a new way to grade a hospital,” Howell said. “Basically, their group came in, picked up a chart and started going over it with a fine tooth comb. They were looking for any issues that needed to be resolved about that chart and they traced its way throughout the hospital. They were talking to nurses, doctors, administrators, janitors, cafeteria workers, business office personnel - anyone in the building could have been interviewed. But they weren’t just here to look at our clinical side, they also inspected our building quality, our heating and air conditioning system and they checked our food preparation technique in the cafeteria. It is hard to put into words how proud I am of this hospital and the people who run it. We all knew going into this survey, the bar was set about as high as it can get. The challenge is to stay the best, and we’re doing a good job of it.”

The JCAHO surveyors also noted the teamwork that was exhibited during the survey.

“I am very proud to be part of this team,” said Kathi Vestal, Director of Quality Improvement. “We have a committed board of trustees, a great team of physicians, and a dedicated staff. They continuously live the mission of Upstate Carolina Medical Center, which is to every day deliver the best patient-first care in the Upstate.”