CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs awarded ‘elite’ accreditation
CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs joins a group of 40 hospitals worldwide to have gained shared governance accreditation from the Forum for Shared Governance.
The internationally-recognized group awarded the hospital the accreditation after “a rigorous survey and evaluation of the hospital’s practices for patient care,” a news release said.
“The actual accreditation took over six weeks,” Angie Longing, chief nursing executive for the CHI St. Vincent system, said Thursday.
“We started a research study, which I was the principal investigator for, and the aim of it is to get the employees’ perception about our professional governance and their control in shared governance in the shared governance model.
“It showed that this is an organization that lives that way, and that your front-line staff have that voice in providing patient care and organization,” she said.
Shared governance gives the nurses who deal with the patients the ability “to make direct clinical patient-care decisions without being superseded by managers or administrators, who may not have enough information to advocate for total patient care,” the release said.
Only two hospitals in the state have achieved the accreditation, Longing said, pointing to Conway Regional Medical Center as the only other state facility with the honor.
“I know that because that was their chief nurse when they achieved it there probably five years ago, but Hot Springs is the second and only (other hospital) in the state of Arkansas to achieve this accreditation,” she said. “We worked with Dr. Robert Hess with the study, and he’s the one that leads the Forum for Shared Governance.”
The Forum for Shared Governance, which was founded over 25 years ago, noted the Conway hospital was recently reaccredited.
CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs received the highest score of any hospital to achieve accreditation from the group.
“Our highly-skilled nurses are experts on the front line of providing the highest quality of care,” Dr. Douglas Ross, CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs president, said. “This accreditation confirms our commitment to our high standards by ensuring our nurses are directly empowered to advocate for patients and provide the utmost standard of patient-focused care.”
Longing said the score proves to her how good CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs really is.
“For CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs to be the highest score, which means that they validate that we have the strongest shared governance — it’s not governed below us or above us, it’s really right there in the middle where your clinicians help lead the practice, can make improvement in the patient care and the quality that we provide — it was just so rewarding,” she said.
“We like to say we’re the best in the nation now by hearing those results. It will tell you that you are going to a quality hospital that provides excellent patient care.”
The honor gives validation to its staff for the work they do, Longing said.
“It’s so much more than just getting the accreditation,” she said.
“That really just provides us with some validation of what we’re doing in our organization and how our clinicians are helping to lead their practice. It really goes back to what really is shared governance, and it’s where you give the decision-making to your frontline clinical staff.
“It’s not driven by a chief nurse that’s sitting in her office somewhere or a leader in the organization. It really puts the care and the opportunities for change and improvement right at the bedside for the people who see it and do it every day and know what is best for those patients,” Longing said.