What’s Important In A Hospital?

5 Things An Excellent Hospital Should Have If You Travel For Medical Reasons 

Are you traveling for medical care and wonder what’s important in a hospital?  See below for some things to consider in selecting your hospital of choice.

1.The first place you should start is to research the hospital where you will have the surgery to ensure it is reputable and has appropriate accreditation.  The most recognized one is Joint Commission International (JCI). It is considered a gold standard in global healthcare.  Other organizations such as Accreditation Canada and Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) are a couple of others that are acceptable.

All facilities in the US and Canada are required to have these types of accreditation.  We have come across hospitals in other countries that claim they are ‘accredited’.  This can be misleading to the patient.  The accreditations they list do not have the same standards that the JCI or AAAHC has.

A hospital that has one of these accreditations will have the procedures in place that measure:

⁃patient rights and education

⁃infection control

⁃medication management to prevent medical errors

⁃the process on how the hospital verifies that its doctors, nurses and other staff qualification and competency

⁃what preparations are there for emergencies

⁃how it collects data on its performance and uses that data to improve itself 

Risks associated with a facility that does NOT have the appropriate accreditation could include: 

⁃blood not being screened for HIV or Hepatitis

⁃reuse of syringes

⁃antibody resistance 

⁃poor quality medications

⁃doctors or nurses that are not qualified

⁃higher risk of infection rate

2.Look at the hospital infection, re-admission and mortality rates and compare it to a state, province or country average. This should be available on the hospital website or you can also check with the state or provinces’ department of health. Many of them now require monitoring for serious reportable events or incidents.  

3. How do they handle your medical records and information?  In the US and Canada, hospitals must adhere to standards such as HIPAA and PIPEDA.  This is a law that protects the patients’ data and medical history.  

4. Doctors and nurses that have experience in working with International patients and speak English fluently.  This may seem obvious but not all International hospitals will have English speaking doctors and staff.  This is incredibly important because you need to be able to understand everything being said.  There needs to be an English speaking guide to get you to and from where you need to be in the hospital as well as have an English speaking doctor and nurse that will be treating you.  

5. Know what their emergency protocol is should there be one.  What precautions do they take and what type of life saving measures do they have?  Are they partnered with another larger hospital?  Is their equipment up to date?

Contact Health Vantis for more information on how to choose the right facility/hospital for you!  Your safety is important to us and we verify all 5 of these points for you.

Health Vantis

www.healthvantis.ca

877-344-3544

info@healthvantis.com