Memorial Hospital | Fremont Ohio Hospital

Laboratory at Memorial Hospital earns national accreditaion

26-Jan-2012

The Memorial Hospital Laboratory has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval™ for accreditation by demonstrating compliance with The Joint Commission’s national standards for health care quality and safety in laboratories. The accreditation award recognizes Memorial Hospital’s dedication to continuous compliance with The Joint Commission’s state-of-the-art standards.

To earn The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval, the Memorial Hospital Laboratory underwent a rigorous unannounced on-site survey in November 2011.  A team of Joint Commission expert surveyors evaluated the hospital laboratory for compliance with standards of care that directly affect the quality and safety of diagnostic services and patient care.

Craig Newman, M.S., M.B.A., MT(ASCP), director of the laboratory, attributes the national accreditation to associates in the department. “The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval is representative of the hard work the laboratory team puts in, not just during the survey, but 365 days a year,” he said.

The Joint Commission has been evaluating and accrediting laboratory services since 1979. Today, The Joint Commission accredits almost 2,000 organizations providing laboratory services. This represents almost 3,000 Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment certificate laboratories, including independent reference labs and in vitro fertilization labs, and those connected with other health care organizations such as hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and long-term care facilities.

"In achieving Joint Commission accreditation, Memorial Hospital’s laboratory has demonstrated its commitment to the highest level of care for its patients," says Jennifer Rhamy, M.B.A., M.A., M.T. (ASCP) SBB, HP, Executive Director, Laboratory Accreditation Program, The Joint Commission. “Accreditation is a voluntary process and I commend Memorial Hospital for successfully undertaking this challenge to elevate its standard of care and instill confidence in the community it serves.”

Memorial Hospital strives to earn and maintain its national accreditations in order to ensure its patients that the hospital meets highest standards of care in the nation. “With Joint Commission accreditation, we are demonstrating the laboratory and hospital’s significant investment in quality,” added Newman. “For our organization, achieving the Gold Seal of Approval is a major step toward maintaining excellence and continually improving the care we provide.”

The Memorial Hospital Laboratory provides comprehensive medical testing and screening services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has two locations – one in Memorial Hospital, and one on Hayes Ave. in Fremont.  The Memorial Hospital Laboratory’s staff includes trained medical technicians and phlebotomists; it also has a daily courier services that picks up and delivers from local physicians and health care facilities. For more information, visit memorialhcs.org/laboratory.

The Joint Commission’s laboratory standards emphasize the results a laboratory should achieve instead of emphasizing the technical methods of performing testing, and were developed with input from professional laboratory organizations. Joint Commission standards address processes that follow laboratory specimens from the doctor’s order into the laboratory from specimen collection then back to the patient through result reporting, focusing on the provision of high quality, safe laboratory services integrated with patient care. These standards highlight the essential nature of laboratory services on the actual care and service delivery processes that contribute to and support the overall health care delivery system. For more information on The Joint Commission, visit jointcomission.org.

      Add to RSS Feed
Return to News Articles