In 2016, FV Hospital for the first time achieved JCI international standards in quality and patient safety certification.
Three years later, according to JCI regulations, an evaluation team would once again be sent to survey and inspect the hospital. And on Jan 19th 2019, after a week of reevaluation, the JCI organization announced FV Hospital had been re-accredited for the second time.
Everyone knows a hospital is built to cure and save people, and patient’s need to go to the hospital to get the right treatment and get the best medical care. It is not only the wishes of the patients but also the wishes of all medical practitioners. However, the fact is that the risks to health within the health sector can be fatal and are higher than the aviation industry and the adverse events in nuclear reactors. The biggest challenge of hospitals is how to ensure the highest safety for both patients and medical staff?
Gold standard used to ensure the highest safety for patients
JCI is the leading organisation in the world in medical quality accreditation and certification. Hospitals that achieve this certification will receive a Gold Seal that recognises their commitment to safety and quality in international patient care and hospital management.
JCI is famous for its strict US standards in the world of healthcare. Because this is a special field, working with human life, JCI’s focus is to protect the safety of patients, and minimize medical risks to the lowest level. In order to do so, JCI proposed 1,200 measures to cover all hospital care activities from receiving patient records, examinations and treatment to hospital discharge.
However, there are six criteria specifically considered by JCI which are referred to as the International Criteria for Patient Safety. These include: (1) Identifying the right patient; (2) Improve the effectiveness of information communication; (3) Improve safety of using high-risk drugs; (4) Ensuring surgery in the right position, right side, right type of surgery, right patient; (5) Reduce the risk of hospital infections, and (6) Reduce the risk of injury to patients due to falls. By not meeting any one of these six important criteria means the JCI Gold Seal of Approval would not be granted.
Right from the early days of establishing FV Hospital, CEO, Dr Jean-Marcel Guillon has persevered in pursuing the ambition of bringing international medical care standards to Vietnam with a heart full of enthusiasm and determination. Building a hospital for patients is at its centre and the hospital’s mission is creating prestige by professional quality”. A talented leader, Dr Guillon focuses on building, and developing FV to become a leading healthcare provider in Asia.
At the beginning when deciding to pursue the JCI gold seal, the hospital leaders faced many difficulties. Whilst the FV team consists of some of the most talented doctors, and possesses extensive experience; the personal working styles and habits were sometimes not the same, so when unifying a process, it meant changes of such individual habits needed to happen. At that time, the common reaction from doctors when asked about JCI was that it was more work, there were too many procedures, papers and it was time consuming.
However, the patient’s safety cannot be placed depending on the memory, experience or working style of an individual even if the individual is a doctor with a high professional ability. FV is determined to pursue the same JCI rigorous standards, which means doing the best we can to minimize risks during treatment and care.
The strong determination of FV clearly reflected in the image of CEO, Dr Jean-Marcel Guillon writing down thousands of policies, procedures and instructions for employees to learn and apply. FV enhances the quality of employees’ work with thousands of hours of study per month, thousands of knowledge sessions per year and constant checks and evaluations. When holding the JCI Gold Seal for the first time, Dr Jean-Marcel Guillon shared with his entire team: “You can be proud of yourself! What is the meaning of achieving quality certification? As independent appraisers, using the most difficult and rigorous standards, it has been concluded that FV Hospital ensures patient safety, that FV hospital’s processes, systems and management methods meet international standards, that FV really provides international medical services, that we work very professionally. ”
The most important aspect is that when processes are standardized and are done correctly, FV not only minimizes medical risks for patients but also contributes to protecting their medical team from mistakes.
JCI Gold Standard: From the goal of striving to become a working culture at FV Hospital
In the second evaluation, when announcing the results that FV continues to meet JCI standards. the JCI’s evaluation team stated that they are very proud of FV’s team of doctors. At FV, JCI standard is not only creating such a quality hospital, but also the commitment and enthusiasm of the people in FV that they can do this. As a hospital, we are proud of all of them, they are a talented and dedicated team.
In order to achieve this, during the past 3 years, since the first to the second JCI evaluation, FV has turned JCI from a process and a standard into a working culture ingrained within each of FV’s employees.
Dr Nguyen Thi Lam Giang, chairperson of the Medical Advisory Board, and Head of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care & Pain Control Department of FV could not hide her pride, she said: “Initially nobody liked JCI, even many people strongly opposed because many doctors think their habits, experiences, feelings are the best. But since the JCI standard was required to comply, the process became clearer. Errors based on personal habits and experiences can be dangerous. Now with JCI, doctors cover all the problems that occur across the entire process, know the errors, avoid them being “broken” by mistakes, and the risks that people can afford to commit. When applied for a long time, it becomes a rule, so the “guideline” helps doctors to limit errors, the effectiveness of treating patients will be better. The most important thing is to help doctors avoid errors that often occur in hospitals. All are for the safety of patients. ”
When referring to the gold standard of a hospital, we must mention about a team of nurses and care assistants. They are the ones who carry out the doctor’s orders and communicate directly with the patient, taking care of the patient carefully to achieve the desired treatment results. Nurses must fully comply with the strict rules of JCI standards. Besides taking care of patients as relatives, JCI also helps this team avoid maximum errors from seemingly small things like serving patients in taking medicine to ensure sufficient and right care, to the 24/7 individual needs of each patient. Nurses are constantly trained and tested to ensure that no one waivers from JCI standards.
JCI is a set of standards that apply to every place, every department, every corner of the hospital. They help the hospital work best, ensure the highest safety, comfort, and the most effective examination and treatment. From the equipment and machines, to the condition of the building, they must always be maintained to ensure they are in the best condition. Including the more minor aspects such as serving food, and the cleanlinessrooms, they all help guarantee hygiene to avoid infection. The process must be ready all the time when patients need to register for medical examination, hospitalisation, insurance processing, and payment until discharge. All are required according to the process to make sure not to miss any problems.
FV Hospital has performed extremely well within the criteria and maintained this level continuously for the past 3 years. Therefore, when faced with JCI’s supervisors coming to reevaluate earlier and stricter, FV was prepared and subsequently received excellent assessment results.
Moreover, in order to accomplish this achievement, FV also promotes the right of patients, such as the right to respect, the right to be provided information, the right to participate in the process of decision of treatment, and the right to receive effective medical services. In particular, FV is very interested in developing a “feedback culture” for patients to strengthen and improve the quality of hospitals. For example, patients can express their compliments, suggestions and also be guided on procedures for presenting conflicts, disagreements, and complaints. For each case of complaints or disagreements, FV has a research team who are responsible for checking and handling each of them according to the standardized process.
In addition to treatment, these services must be the best, patients who receive proper care will support effective treatment, and patients will better sooner.
In the letter sent to the FV team when achieving the second JCI international quality standard with the highest safety criteria, Dr Jean-Marcel Guillon, CEO wrote: “We have easily passed the survey to achieve reaccreditation. JCI auditors found only 12 ‘need improvement’ criteria among the 1,200 evaluation criteria. Moreover, they admire the spirit of devotion and enthusiasm for what you have been doing. When I reread the values of FV Hospital, I saw our image in it. I see all of you – a team of highly professional and ethical professionals. You converge your dedication, sympathy, solidarity, continuous efforts to be perfect, reliable and enthusiastic. I am so proud.”
Once again, the JCI Gold Seal is another milestone in FV’s long-term commitment to provide high-quality patient care and achieve its ambition to “Bring international healthcare standards to Vietnam”. All of these efforts continue to help make FV Hospital a leading medical service provider in Asia.
