Apollo Hospitals gets Joint Commission International credit

Chennai, May 9 (UNI) Apollo Hospitals here has become the first hospital in South India to be accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI), the worldwide leader in improving the quality of health care.

The hospital is the second medical facility in the Group to receive the distinction, after the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in New Delhi.

A team of international health care experts conducted an onsite evaluation of the hospital for the JCI in January 2006, a hospital release here said said.

JCI Chief Executive officer Karen Timmons said health care organisations around the world wanted to create environments that focused on quality, safety and continuous improvement.

Accreditation would meet this demand by stimulating continuous and systematic improvements in an organisation's performance and the outcome of patient care, she added.

Apollo Hospitals Managing Director Preetha Reddy said 'the JCI audit was an extremely stringent process. There were 1,033 measurable elements on the basis of which the hospital was evaluated. Earning this accreditation is another step of Apollo Hospital's towards achieving parity with the world's best health care organizations.' UNI AKN AA 1657