An Unannnounced Initial Survey by the Joint Commission has resulted in full accreditation for SHC, announced CEO Martha Marsh at the conclusion of the JC’s five-day visit on May 25.

“I want to personally thank each of you for your continuing commitment to quality care and patient safety at Stanford Hospital & Clinics,” said Marsh in an open letter to SHC leadership. “As we all know, quality improvement is an ongoing process and I look forward to working with each of you to maintain Stanford Hospital & Clinics’ standard of excellence.”

This is the first time that the JC has visited Stanford under a new program of unannounced visits, which authorizes a team of visiting physicians and other health care experts to visit the hospital at any time up to 18 months prior to the end of an accreditation period, typically three years. Institutions may only designate 10 blackout days a year that site visits should be avoided.

According to the Chicago-based national organization, JC “standards are the basis of an objective evaluation process for health care organizations that can help measure, assess and improve organization performance. The standards focus on important patient, client or resident care and organization functions that are essential to providing quality care in a safe environment.”

Hospital leaders have noted that in recent years the results of JC accreditation have been released to the public on websites and in other media outlets, making accreditation part of patients’ decisions on where to go for their care. In recent years, the JC has been instrumental in introducing a number of quality and safety initiatives, including National Patient Safety Goals and Sentinel Event monitoring. The JC, until recently called the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), has been accrediting hospitals for 50 years.