HSA seeking approval for entire hospital
Cayman Islands Hospital, George Town
(CNS): The chief executive officer of the George Town hospital has said that the Health Service Authority will be seeking international accreditation for the entire facility. Lizette Yearwood revealed the goal this week at an event marking the successful accreditation of all of the hospital’s laboratories. Although a long time coming, the HSA has now received the nod from the bodies JCI, FQS and ILAC-MRA for reaching the required standard in quality, safety and compliance.
The accreditation came from the Joint Commission International for labs and means that the JCI has recognized the Cayman facilities as high quality and meeting top international standards. It covers the labs and blood bank as well as the forensic laboratory, which met the standard some time ago.
The hospital boss said that the accreditation was regarded as the gold standard for labs and the HSA now “belongs to an elite group of labs worldwide”, giving doctors and physicians, as well as their patients, complete confidence that their medical results are accurate and reliable. She said Cayman could now take referrals and tests from other countries in the region and was recognized as a training centre
Meeting the approval requires constant improvement and keeping up with the ongoing standards marking the labs out as the best the region has to offer.
Yearwood said the achievement for the labs was just the first step as, phase by phase, department by department, the HSA would seek the relevant accreditation across the hospital.
At the celebration on Tuesday evening, Roy McTaggart, the premier’s councillor who was there on behalf of Premier and Health Minister Alden McLaughlin, said it was a truly “positive outcome” because people can be assured that the labs meet very high standards and will improve patient outcomes.
McTaggart said the staff involved in seeking the accreditation, which began with the late Joan Terry’s work in 2003, had “raised the bar” and was an achievement they should be proud of.
Category: Health, Medical Health
I find this very hard to understand. Based on what I’ve recently been told doctors are still having to send blood work off-island for double-checking to make certain the HSA labs haven’t missed anything.
20/3 @6:22 am
That could be so, but I get the gamut of routine tests at the lab and findings have always proven correct. In fact, I have had same tests done overseas and had same results. Definitely no complaints here.
The funny thing is that it is the doctors who in my experience are sometimes dead wrong. Mainly because the small population means they don’t see as many complex cases that would build their expertise. I have had that experience in my own family. And by the way, US doctors screw up all the time! That is why their malpractice insurance and consequently medical care in the US are so expensive.
So local is not always inferior — especially as the lab is concerned. I think we get a darn good service — we and our lab can be proud of their work.
12.05-wrong on the medmal issue. The big problem is that you can sue for pretty much anything in the US and the courts for whatever reason mostly back the plaintif, and make very big awards. Smaller cases get settled rather than going to court, even if they should not be, just to avoid the huge expense. It will come to a point when only the very few will be able to afford medical insurance. Eslewhere people are less inclined to sue and settlements are more reasonable.
That is because a doctor today is just an educated guesser, pills dispenser, not a real doctor with intellectual curiosity and love for people. Google is a better doctor. I have been shuffled around a lot, until an experienced, local doctor, forgot his name, got a hunch and sent me to Miami, and he was right about it.It was an older gentleman, forgot his name, but I am grateful he was around when I was hospitalized. It takes years for people with my condition to be diagnosed, I was lucky, thanks to this doctor. All other female doctors were just rolling their eyes.
Shetty hospital does tilt table testing now, no need to go elsewhere, but without an intellectually curious doctors people could suffer needlessly for years.
Kudos to the lab. This is one area of the hospital that has long had superb systems, getting patients in and out at amazing speed and efficiency — and results come back within 24 hours for relevant tests. These lab technician are obviously very efficient employees who do not waste time. When you go into the lab, it is a business-like environment all the way.
This gives me confidence that similar efficiency and professionalism are being applied to lab work behind the scenes.
Impressive all round. I can see exactly why they have been thus recognized.
And, no, I don’t work there — and neither do my aunts, uncles, cousins. I am just a patient who regularly is sent to the lab for a whole bunch of tests, and I get consistently excellent service. My doctors have never complained.
Well done on the accreditation.
Work on improving your extremely poor service first. For starters, answer the damn phone and return messages. At least an hour per day should be dedicated to returning calls.
Agree.They are not qualified yet.
It will mean nothing. As usual the apparent easy option is favoured instead of hard graft and fought and won respect for its courses.
Perhaps the CEO could explain the reasons behind HSA’s move to amend the regulations to allow for HSA to hire doctors who are not from one of the approved jurisdictions under our law. The exception given to Health City is understandable as it relates to Medico Tourism – which is great addition to our economy. Does HSA now want to get into Medico Tourism?
No, 9:50, it probably just wants to enter the modern world/21st century instead of staying in a time capsule deemed appropriate in an earlier very different world.
BS!! money is the only power in Cayman and a slap in the face to our long serving and highly accredited doctors! WHY should we LOWER the standards so Shetty can bring in unqualified people to the HSA while our local doctors must pay $$ and pass difficult exams to stay certified- I say at least make the Shetty doctors pass the same UK, US, and Canada exams- no backdoor please!!! This is how we reward the GOOD doctors that invested in the community here? No way Miss Liz.
It is of vital necesssity that the Cayman Health Services Authority Hospital remains as our local hospital. To change the regulations for HSA to hire Drs. who are not from one of the jurisdictions under the Law would be to hand the keys of the Cayman Health Services Authority into the very hands of the Shetty Hospital creating the saddest worst event in healthcare for the Cayman Islands and for the patients who do receive the best care at their own CIHSA which serves them very well indeed. The Medical Director of CIHSA is the absolute Best in the entire Caribbean Region not only the Cayman Islands. We must all support our local beloved hospital and not allow it to be taken over by unqualified Drs – no-one is fool enough to request lesser standards of physician accreditation to take place at the CIHSA !!! No-one that is with any sense at all or passion or pride or joy and comfort of knowing that qualified by Law physicians take care of us all at our own local hospital. See through and beyond the games at play here and support our own CIHSA hospital Doctors for they well deserve and earn our support. Daily operational service delivery administratively is a quick fix which is the real area of focus for CIHSA not the physicians for they are medically superior in qualifications and let us not be foolhardy enough to be encouraged to support any change in Law to lessen this highest standard of physician qualification for which the underlying concept is entirely marketing based in order for a “take-over position to be established”… We must stand together to support CIHSA Physicians and insist on no changes to the Law allowing lesser qualified physicians to be employed at our own local hospital CIHSA.
Congratulations to the Cayman Islands Hospital — you now have the imprimatur of this professional international body to support the excellent work that your labs do. I get great, efficient service — the laboratory staff are simply wonderful and the turnaround on tests is phenomenal. The best in the world, actually! On one occasion, I did a blood test at 8 am and the lab obliged in returning the results to my doctor in time for a 11 am appointment the same day (not that I recommend we patients try that — they routinely return results of relevant blood tests done locally by next day — which I think is amazing enough ).
I am so pleased, as well, that, unlike UCCI, in seeking accreditation, the hospital has done so through an international body that is itself professionally accredited to do so. I have to take the opportunity to raise a red flag about the very questionable manouever of UCCI in seeking accreditation through a UK body that by its own admission is not accrediting courses or degrees, but the institution itself! So what good is the accreditation? Isn’t validation of courses and degrees what accreditation is all about? And by the way, the only regional institution that has “institutional” accreditation, the gold standard of accreditation, if you will, which means it can introduce accredited courses on its own professional merit, is UWI.
As I understand it, UWI is accredited by the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ).
I am surprised that not one arm of the media has looked into this proposed accreditation move by UCCI through a visit by one man. In a two day visit, this gentleman is purporting to accredit UCCI following a month of long-distance discussion, in all of one month. How nice of them — but if it is not worth the paper it is written on, what is the point? Throwing some money after a little white wash?