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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Mediscan Receives Joint Commission Certification

Mediscan Staffing Services in Woodland Hills ended 2008 with an achievement likely to give it an edge over competitors. It received certification from the Joint Commission. Formerly known as the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the commission is an independent, not-for-profit organization which accredits and certifies more than 15,000 healthcare agencies and programs nationwide. A seal of approval from the commission is widely recognized as meaning that an organization has committed to meeting certain performance standards. For Mediscan, obtaining the certification took a year. “It took a long time for us, as it would for any company that has been in business for a while and has a large volume of business,” explained Emily Serebryany, president of Mediscan’s nursing line of business. Mediscan was founded in 1995. In recent years, officials at the company began to discuss the benefits of obtaining Joint Commission certification. “We talked about this for a while for four or five years,” Serebryany said. “It’s a labor-intensive process to go through this certification.” To do so, Mediscan allowed Joint Commission officials to review its staffing practices and measures it uses to address patient care. Mediscan’s contracting, credentialing, information systems and other methods had to comply with the Joint Commission’s standards. To boot, commission representatives selected about 90 Mediscan files at random and verified them to ensure that the company was in compliance. “That was very, very important for us,” Serebryany said. It was crucial that Mediscan become certified because the focus of the company’s expansion is the East Coast, where such certification is more likely to be required. The certification will result in Mediscan being viewed as having the same standards of care that hospitals do, according to Serebryany. “We’re a staffing agency. We provide medical personnel to hospitals,” she said. “It puts us on the same footing. In terms of the benefits, it provides for us a lot of clients who are looking for a JCAHO certified company.” Serebryany added that some clients only accept companies that contract with the state and federal government, which means that Joint Commission certification is a must. “We were told by some of our clients that they’re not going to renew the contract unless we’re JCAHO certified,” Serebryany said. “It became a reality that we have to be JCAHO-certified, or we might not be compatible in the business sense.” Serebryany is not only pleased that the certification will allow Mediscan to renew existing contracts; she said that she is also very proud that the Joint Commission found Mediscan to be in 100 percent compliance. “It’s very unusual that we got 100 percent compliance. It’s unusual for any of the staffing companies or any hospitals to get 100 percent compliance We have a great group of people working on our compliance team.”

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