By Brad Hicks / Staff Writer
Baptist Regional Medical Center celebrated a rare feat in the medical world Thursday, when it was officially awarded registration from their auditing registrar, QMI-SAI Global, to the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system standard – and became the only hospital in Kentucky to achieve it.
International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, is an organization that facilitates the writing of internationally recognized standards in quality management, and these standards require companies to follow standardized quality procedures.
“I can’t say it the way he says it because this is a Baptist facility, but as Kid Rock says, ‘It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up,’” said BRMC President/CEO John Henson to the audience of BRMC employees at Thursday’s ceremony. “So, for the people of the area, the Tri-County area and those outside the area, this is about how we provide the best quality care we feasibly can.”
Prior to a company receiving this registration certificate, an initial registration audit must be conducted to make sure the company and its employees are adhering to standardized quality measures. The audit was conducted by the largest registrar in North America, QMI-SAI Global.
The process began approximately 18 months ago and culminated with Thursday’s ceremony.
Over the last six years, BRMC has attained a level of exclusivity — in 2002, it was the only hospital in the state to be given the Gold Quality Award, and now, it is the only hospital in Kentucky to receive ISO 9001 registration. Also, BRMC is one of very few hospitals in the country to be awarded ISO certification.
“We’re the first hospital in Kentucky to win the Gold Quality Award,” Henson said. “Now, we’re the first to have ISO registration. You need to appreciate and recognize you are one of the very, very few in the United States to achieve this.”
Also on hand to offer her congratulations was Wendy Tilford, president of QMI-SAI Global.
“I’m here today to tell you what you’ve achieved is really remarkable,” she said.
Tilford said health care facilities will often attempt to obtain ISO registration for individual departments. She remarked on what a feat it was for the entire BRMC facility to be awarded registration and said the hospital completed the initial registration audit with no major non-conformance findings.
“Few health care facilities have really completely finished the journey,” she said. “It has been very evident to us that Baptist Regional is committed to the principles of the standard... This is a major milestone, not just for you, but for OMI-SAI Global as well because it is so significant in the healthcare industry today.”
Only a few years removed from earning the Gold Quality Award, Henson said BRMC and its employees have, for some time, worked hard to achieve a high level of quality.
“So we were working from a pretty good backbone,” he said.
