Atrium Medical Center Implements ISO 9001 Standards

After reading the news in ModernHealthcare.com that CMS had granted U.S. hospital deeming status to the National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations (NIAHO), run by Det Norske Veritas (DNV), I decided to call Robyn Myers, Director of Quality and Accreditation for Atrium.  

Robyn stated the reasons Atrium went with ISO 9001 standards was mainly to improve quality throughout the hospital not just clinical services. After going through training on the ISO philosophy, Robyn spent the next four to five months developing manuals, setting up education sessions, and developing system policies where some were needed.  

I asked Robyn “Why would a hospital want to switch from The Joint Commission or Healthcare Facility Accreditation Program to NIAHO (ISO 9001)”? Here are a few of the reasons: 

ISO keeps the hospital on track everyday, not just at survey time. Although the surveys are somewhat unannounced, there is a three month notice of an upcoming survey.

There is not much variation between surveyors and there is actually a relationship that develops between the hospital and the surveyor so the process is collaborative and not punitive. The public can relate to ISO Standards because those standards can apply to various industries (laboratories, aviation, manufacturing, etc). 

A challenge for Robyn was learning new terminology and teaching hospital staff and medical staff both the language and new concepts. I couldn’t help but ask Robyn about OPPE and FPPE and if that was something she dealt with under ISO standards. Her answer: Not at all. 

Carole La Pine, MSA, CPMSM, CPCS