Will County Health Department's Community Health Center Receives Major Accreditation

From the Will County Health Department:

JOLIET, IL — The mission began about two years ago. Will County Health Department Community Health Center Chief Executive Officer Mary Maragos had been thinking about it ever since her arrival at the facility back in October 2013. Dr. Jennifer Byrd, who joined the Center in 2014 and became Chief Medical Officer in January 2016, had previous experience with and knowledge about the Joint Commission.

An independent, not-for-profit organization established in 1951, the Joint Commission is the country’s oldest and largest standards-setting body in health care.

“It just came up one day in conversation,” Byrd recalled. “It turned out that Mary and I were on the same wavelength.”

Maragos knew this would be a long process.

“We needed to have all of our operations standardized," she said. "And the Joint Commission has hundreds of standards. We needed to make sure we had the policies to support them, needed to educate our staff, and we needed weekly briefings throughout the process.”

While the Joint Commission is known first and foremost for accrediting hospitals, they also have a department for ambulatory care facilities. This would include out-patient health centers such as Will County’s Community Health Center, which became a federally qualified health center in 2001. Maragos and Byrd stated that when a non-hospital facility approaches the joint commission for accreditation, they need to be ready for a major evaluation and refinement of their policies and procedures.

“They are known for deep diving into granular details,” Byrd said.

Maragos agreed.

“It’s all about patient safety and quality," she said. "You must demonstrate effectiveness.”

And that means going through hundreds of pages of regulations. Everything down to, Maragos said, “the tiles in the floor. Are the trash cans covered? What does this button do? How often do you test the sprinkler system? It’s very safety oriented, but also quality oriented. They want to know how your facility looks, how it operates, and how well trained are the staff.”

It goes without saying that the Community Health Center staff had to buy into this effort. And Maragos understood why it was hard at first.

“When you change jobs, sure, there’s a lot to learn," she said. "But if you’ve been working somewhere for 20 years and now all of your procedures are being re-standardized, that takes some time.”

When the inspection finally happened, it was scheduled. But since the Community Health Center passed, becoming one of the less than 10 percent of the ambulatory care centers nationwide receiving this designation, the next inspection will be an unannounced surprise. The accreditation needs to be updated every three years.

Will County Health Department Community Health Center Reimbursement Specialists Candace Sanchez and Tammy Cleary busy at work | image via Will County Sheriff's Department