Prairie Mountain Health has received its national accreditation award following a comprehensive week-long regional survey in mid-June.

Accreditation Canada has affirmed that the health region has achieved the “Accredited —Report” level, meaning PMH is required to report back on certain organizational practices, standards and quality improvements relating to patient safety, within established timeframes.

Accreditation is a continuous quality improvement process that evaluates PMH programs and services against national standards. Over 50 ‘PMH Teams’ prepared quality improvement plans, self-assessment evaluations and required organizational practices/standards to be ready for the survey.

The final accreditation review indicated that PMH met just over 89 per cent of surveyed criteria.

PMH CEO Penny Gilson says that the award is a result of months of hard work to review and report on standards, as well as the ongoing commitment and dedication of staff to continually improve on health care program and service delivery.
“We are very proud of the outcome from the accreditation survey— officially our first complete regional review for Prairie Mountain Health. Accreditation affects everyone within our organization as well as our affiliate organizations and together, we remain as committed as ever to enhance the delivery of care and patient and client safety. We sincerely thank our accreditation teams, and all staff, management, physicians, and volunteers for their involvement and dedication to this process.”

Some general highlights and comments from within the final report include:

* Forty-seven (47) locations were assessed on–site by the accreditation survey team; 21 sets of evidence-informed standards were used during the assessment;
* The region has recently formulated and released its first Strategic Plan (2016-2021);
* PMH should continue working on an organization-wide operational plan that continues to identify how strategic priorities are achieved;
* The region must continue working to enhance high priority programs that contribute to a culture of safety including hand hygiene, medication management and falls assessment and prevention programs;
* PMH is encouraged to continue to aggressively implement a successful regional recruitment strategy;
* The region should build on strategies to bring the “voice of the client” into its client and family-centred approaches;
* Positive feedback about regionalization was received from stakeholders;
* Surveyors recognized the region’s Learning Management System as an excellent program to engage staff, support performance review and planning and build human resources capacity; and
* The region was commended for sites and facilities that were well-maintained, uncluttered and clean;

The accreditation onsite survey that was completed in June 2016 was the first for PMH as an amalgamated region. This required merging of three former accreditation review processes and contributed to the development of a successful PMH framework. An accreditation decision is valid for four years and PMH will participate in another onsite survey in 2020.