Riverwood Healthcare Center has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Critical Access Hospital Accreditation by demonstrating continuous compliance with its performance standards. The Gold Seal is a symbol of quality that reflects a health care organization’s commitment to providing safe and quality patient care.
Riverwood underwent a rigorous, unannounced onsite review on June 6-9, 2023. During the visit, a team of Joint Commission reviewers evaluated compliance with Critical Access Hospital standards spanning several areas including emergency management, environment of care, infection prevention and control, leadership, medication management, and rights and responsibilities of the individual.
The Joint Commission’s standards are developed in consultation with health care experts and providers, measurement experts and patients. They are informed by scientific literature and expert consensus to help health care organizations measure, assess, and improve performance. The surveyors also conducted onsite observations and interviews.
“As a heath care accreditor, The Joint Commission works with health care organizations across settings to help improve patient safety and quality of care through our expert resources and tools, innovative solutions and rigorous standards,” says Deborah Ryan, MS, RN, interim executive vice president, Accreditation and Certification Operations, The Joint Commission. “We commend Riverwood Healthcare Center for its commitment to advance safety and quality for all patients.”
Riverwood CEO Ken Westman added: “We strive to deliver the highest level of safety and quality care. Joint Commission accreditation signals the medical excellence patients can expect when they seek care at our hospital and clinics. The Riverwood team is firmly committed to a system of continuous improvement in the health care we provide our patients.”
In preparation for Joint Commission Accreditation, we maintain strong levels of safety and quality across all services through frequent internal monitoring and assessments. Our staff continually improves performance with a safety culture, keeping the patient at the center of care delivery and seeking improvement at every opportunity.
The latest results from Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys show that Riverwood consistently gets rated five stars, the highest rating of “excellence” from the patients it serves.
The five-star ratings issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are for patients’ experience of their hospital care. Factors include important topics like how well nurses and doctors communicate, how responsive hospital staff were to needs, and cleanliness and quietness of the hospital environment.
The five-star rating is based on HCAHPS survey data from 2021 and 2022.
For more information, please visit The Joint Commission website.
About Riverwood Healthcare Center
Riverwood Healthcare Center, Aitkin, MN is a private, not-for-profit, 25-bed hospital offering the privacy of all single occupancy rooms. The hospital is Joint Commission accredited. As the premier provider in central MN for specialized care, Riverwood offers a wide variety of specialty programs including general; specializing in minimally invasive and robotic surgery, orthopaedics (robotic total knee and hip), oncology, women’s health, urology, neck, back and spine interventional pain clinic, ENT, cardiology, dermatology, podiatry, ophthalmology, and emergency care. Riverwood is a Level III Trauma Center, MN Reflux and Heartburn Center, Hernia Specialists of MN, and home to Minnesota Center for Orthopaedics fellowship program.
Other services include occupational, physical and speech therapy, diagnostic imaging, diabetes and nutrition, lab, wound care, pharmaceutical, flight physicals, and cardiopulmonary rehab. In 2023, Riverwood was named Top 100 Critical Access Hospital in the United States.
Riverwood clinics and pharmacies are in Aitkin, Garrison, and McGregor. Learn more at www.riverwoodhealth.