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Minister of Health John Boyce accepts the Certificate of Gold Level Accreditation from High Commissioner of Canada in Barbados, Her Excellency Marie Legault, while Chief Executive Officer of QEH, Dr Dexter James; and Chairman of QEH’s Board of Management, Joseph King look on.

Proud moment for QEH

It was a proud moment for the management team and general staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) when they were presented with the Certificate of Gold Level Accreditation by Accreditation Canada on Friday.

For the first time in the more than five decades of its existence, the island’s lone public hospital pursued and has been awarded an International Accreditation – standards of excellence in quality care and service.

High Commissioner of Canada in Barbados, Her Excellency Marie Legault, had the pleasure of handing over the certificate to Minister of Health John Boyce; Chief Executive Officer of QEH, Dr Dexter James; and Chairman of QEH’s Board of Management, Joseph King during a ceremony at the hospital’s auditorium.

Minister Boyce noted that accreditation is one of the most powerful symbols of a health care organisation’s commitment to provide high quality, safe care and continuous improvement services across all aspects of patient care and patient safety, using the benchmarks associated with global best practice.

“Accreditation benefits all stakeholders, but the patients of the QEH are the biggest beneficiaries as accreditation results in a high quality of care and patient safety. Accreditation ensures that patients’ rights are respected and protected. The environment of care is one that promotes safety and patients can expect to have their voices heard through the periodic evaluation of outpatient satisfaction surveys,” he pointed out.

“Because of accreditation, the Board of Management of the QEH will now be able to identify strengths and weaknesses, promote transparency, improve the hospital management process and thereby increase accountability to the Barbadian public. International accreditation at the Gold Level therefore indicates that we are operating in all departments to the highest international standards. Achieving such necessitated a great deal of work by everyone and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital came out of this process pre-excellence, which is very much to the credit of all of the staff.”

To attain the Gold Standard of accreditation, it is Accreditation Canada’s policy that the hospital must comply with 100 per cent of all Required Organisational Practices (ROPS), meet at least 90 per cent of High Priority Criteria, meet at least 81 per cent of all regular criteria and conduct a staff patient safety culture survey.

The Health Minister thereby revealed that QEH scored 90 per cent compliance with Accreditation Canada’s Standards.

“Seeing your dedication I am confident that you would be able to maintain this accreditation status with the resources being provided. Bear in mind, that the accreditation process is journey and already we have been advised that the hospital is required to submit an action plan on areas of operation referred to as a system wide and service excellence standards by August 22nd, 2018,” Boyce reminded staff.

Dr James thanked the 2 100 strong staff complement at the QEH for standing behind the process, which got underway in 2016.

“We salute all of you for your continued hard work and commitment to our corporate vision and staying the course and making this dream of accreditation a reality,” the CEO expressed.

“You are now part of this history-making moment. You have made Barbados exceedingly proud. This international award will position our hospital to rub shoulders with an elite
set of similar hospitals …Continue to strive for excellence and focus on sustaining and preserving the gains made from this accreditation journey.”

High Commissioner Legault also took the opportunity to commend the institution for taking what she described as a “courageous step”, and for using the Canadian accreditation body which works with more than 7 000 health and social service providers of all types and sizes in more than 15 jurisdictions on five continents around the world.

“You could have chosen another body, to get your accreditation from another country, but you chose Canada. I think this an example once again of the strong relationship between Barbados and Canada. We continue to have similar values, similar views on many things and I would like to thank you for choosing Accreditation Canada,” she said.
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