By demonstrating compliance with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization’s national standards for health care quality and safety, UCLA Medical Center has earned the joint commission’s Gold Seal of Approval.

Founded in 1951, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare (JCAHO) is dedicated to improving the safety and quality of the nation’s health care through voluntary accreditation. JCAHO’s on-site survey of UCLA Medical Center occurred in late May.

The organization concluded, following its comprehensive five-day survey, that UCLA met all of its criteria for providing quality health care, and that no recommendations for improvement would be necessary. According to JCAHO, only 17 percent of hospitals received accreditation with full standards compliance in 2003.

“Above all, the national standards are intended to stimulate continuous, systematic and organization-wide improvement in an organization’s performance and the outcomes of care,� said Kurt Patton, executive director, Hospital Accreditation Program, JCAHO. “The community should be proud that UCLA Medical Center is focusing on the most challenging goal — to continuously raise quality and safety to higher levels.�

“The survey results demonstrate once again why UCLA Medical Center is ‘best in the West,’� said Dr. Gerald S. Levey, vice chancellor, UCLA Medical Sciences, and dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “We’re pleased to have received this accreditation from such a demanding organization, and know that it’s all due to the hard work and dedication of our exemplary staff.�

Frances Ridlehoover, chief operating officer for UCLA Medical Center, also credited hospital staff for the survey’s successful results. “The survey results reflect the excellence of our medical, nursing, technical and support staff, and their dedication to providing the highest quality care for our patients. We are especially proud to have demonstrated our complete compliance with all of the National Patient Safety Goals.�

For nearly five decades, UCLA Medical Center has provided routine and specialized care for millions of patients from the Greater Los Angeles area and around the world. It is the primary teaching hospital for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. U.S. News & World Report ranked UCLA Medical Center the No. 3 hospital in the country this year and the best in the Western United States for the past 14 years.

UCLA Medical Center operates on a not-for-profit, self-supporting basis. Since it opened in July 1955, the 668-bed hospital has marked several medical milestones, including the first open-heart surgery in the Western United States (1956); the first mother-to-daughter kidney transplant on the West Coast (1960); the development of techniques for nerve transplantation (1962); the first total shoulder replacement (1976); the first totally implantable artificial heart on the West Coast (2001); and the successful separation of craniopagus conjoined twins (2002). For more information, log on to www.mednet.ucla.edu.

To earn and maintain accreditation, hospitals must arrange for an onsite JCAHO review at least every three years to evaluate the organization’s performance in areas that affect patient care. JCAHO then decides whether to award accreditation based on how well the organization met JCAHO standards. JCAHO is an independent, not-for-profit organization governed by a board of physicians, nurses and consumers. JCAHO evaluates the quality and safety of care provided by nearly 16,000 health care organizations, and sets the standards by which health care quality is measured in America and around the world. For more information, visit www.jcaho.org/index.htm.