The laboratory of the Juan F. Luis Hospital received a surprise inspection Friday from the Joint Commission, a private agency that evaluates medical facilities across the country, and received a clean report, the hospital said in a statement released Saturday.
The hospital said Vicki Livingston, a survey officer from the Joint Commission’s Office of Quality Management, began her inspection of the hospital’s laboratory at approximately 9 a.m. Friday. When she was finished, she said her inspection resulted in "no findings," which means there were no issues or failures to meet standards reported to the hospital. The report of "no findings" is preliminary and TJC will issue the hospital a formal report in 10 to 15 days.
"The operations at JFL’s laboratory are very efficient and the lab is very well supervised despite the financial challenges the hospital faces," Livingston said.
TJC is an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies more than 20,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, according to the group’s website.
Dr. Kendall Griffith, the interim chief executive officer of JFL, said he was not surprised by Livingston reported no findings.
"All of our medical and support staff at JFL are focused on doing the best job possible in all of our respective areas of work," he said. "Our goal is to provide our community with the best in quality care 100 percent of the time and unannounced inspections like this only help to validate that we are on the right track and up to meeting the challenge."
TJC last visited the Juan F. Luis Hospital in September 2013 and examined several of the hospital’s laboratory services to determine if they met the commission’s standards. This process of examination is designed to ensure organizations such as JFL provide safe, high-quality care, treatment, and services by identifying opportunities for improvement in their processes and to help them follow through and implement these improvements, according to the hospital’s news release.
