Published on December 04, 2009

Orthopedic Center First To Receive Joint Commission Certification

Jacksonville, FL, Dec. 4, 2009 – St. Vincent’s Medical Center is home to Jacksonville’s first and only Joint Commission certified Orthopedic Center of Excellence. The Joint Commission awarded the certification after a visit to the hospital and an intensive review of its total knee and total joint replacement programs. The Joint Commission is the nation’s premier healthcare accreditation entity. www.jointcommission.org

“Patients in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia who need joint replacement surgery can confidently say, there’s a center in my area that truly offers expert care,” says St. Vincent’s Orthopedic Center of Excellence Medical Director R. David Heekin, M.D. “A national certifying agency has gone through our program from top to bottom and recognizes it as an excellent program that also happens to have high patient satisfaction rates.”

St. Vincent’s Orthopedic Center of Excellence successfully met the requirements in all three of the following areas addressed by the Joint Commission’s Disease-Specific Care Certification Program:

• Compliance with consensus-based national standards and safety goals. 
• Effective use of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines to manage and optimize care.
• An organized approach to performance measurement and improvement activities.

One aspect of the program included in the Joint Commission review was patient education. “We’ve focused heavily on the patient experience, offering them more information about their procedure ahead of time,” says Kenneth Jones, Director of Orthopedics, Neurosciences and Surgical Services at St. Vincent’s. “The goal is to prepare patients for what they can expect. We provide extensive pre-surgery patient education opportunities that include classroom and take-home DVD sessions with members of our multidisciplinary team.”

Attending the class has a number of measurable benefits. “Every center that does a high volume of joint replacements that also has a patient education class prior to the surgery, has demonstrated lower apprehension among patients, higher patient satisfaction, a shorter length of stay and better outcomes,” says Dr. Heekin.

More joint replacements are performed at St. Vincent’s Orthopedic Center of Excellence than at any other hospital in Florida. Every study that has looked at the relationship between a high volume of joint replacement cases and outcomes has demonstrated that a higher volume is associated with fewer complications and better outcomes.

The St. Vincent’s Orthopedic Center of Excellence comprehensive joint replacement program is designed to:

• Educate patients and families about the joint replacement surgery experience at St. Vincent’s
• Streamline the admissions process
• Ensure the surgery itself is performed in a state-of-the-art operating room using the most advanced equipment, implants and techniques in the world
• Provide excellent hospital care following surgery by highly-trained nurses, physical therapists, medical specialists and discharge planners who help guide the patients’ transition back to their home environment.