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- Accreditation
- Commitment to quality and safety
- Quality and safety measures
- Patient and community satisfaction
- Recognition and accolades
UC Davis is accredited for quality and safety by the nation's oldest and largest hospital health standards-setting organization.
What accreditation is
The UC Davis Medical Center is accredited for quality and safety by The Joint Commission, an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to raising the level of safety and quality of health care. Accreditation is considered a symbol of quality in the health-care industry, and the Joint Commission is considered the nation’s predominant health standards-setting body.
The Joint Commission Gold Seal logo for accredited hospitals.
The Joint Commission's 29-member governing board includes physicians, administrators, nurses, employers, labor, health plan leaders, quality experts, ethicists, a consumer advocate and educators.
Accreditation is essentially an inventory of operational systems and procedures that the Joint Commission believes are critical to the safety and quality of patient care at a hospital. The commission develops these standards with input from health-care professionals, providers, measurement experts, consumers and employers.
According to the Joint Commission Web site, "Accreditation and/or certification is the process of requesting an independent review of your organization’s performance against national quality and safety requirements. Joint Commission accredited or certified organizations have demonstrated that they meet the highest standards in their field."
Accreditation is voluntary, and supplements mandatory government licensure and certification.
How it works
The Joint Commission uses more than 250 standards for hospital accreditation, from infection control to emergency preparedness.
The Joint Commission uses more than 250 standards for hospital accreditation concerning a wide variety of topics, such as:
- Educating patients and upholding patient rights
- Controlling infections
- Managing medications
- Preventing medical errors
- Verifying staff qualifications and competency
- Emergency preparation, and
- Collecting performance data and using it to drive improvements.
The commission issues a customized list of standards and systems for hospital staff to check their operations against. Hospitals submit reports to the commission for review and consideration, and undergo on-site surveys and inspections that may last two days or more.
The accreditation process can take up to two years and involve hundreds of hours of staff time.
How it's enforced
More on accreditation
To maintain accreditation, UC Davis Medical Center must also:
- Perform annual reviews and submit them for approval by the commission, with action plans to address any areas of weak compliance.
- Submit data every three months about how it treats certain conditions, such as heart attack and pneumonia.
- Submit to unannounced on-site surveys a minimum of once every three years. To evaluate compliance with quality standards, surveyors select patients randomly and use their medical records to review the services they received as they progressed through the hospital.
Based on their submissions, hospitals are fully accredited or else given provisional, conditional, preliminary, preliminary denial or denial of accreditation. UC Davis Medical Center is fully accredited.
How to report problems or concerns
Everyone has a role in making health care safe. That includes doctors, health-care executives, nurses and many health-care technicians. As a patient, you can make your care safer by being an active, involved and informed member of your health-care team. It's part of the Speak Up campaign, The Joint Commission's national initiative to maintain and increase the safety of patients by encouraging them to become actively engaged in their care. Read more about how to Speak Up
If you have any concerns about your care or safety at UC Davis Medical Center that have not been directly addressed to your satisfaction, you are encouraged to contact medical center management through UC Davis Medical Center's Patient Relations department at (916) 734-9777.