Inova Mount Vernon achieves rare perfect score

Inova Joint Replacement Center team, Inova Mount Vernon Hospital (Courtesy of Inova Mount Vernon Hospital)

Following a comprehensive day-long review of the Inova Joint Replacement Center at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital on Wednesday, a prestigious national healthcare accreditation organization awarded the center a rare perfect score for its total hip and total knee replacement programs.

The biannual soup-to-nuts assessment of the Inova center was conducted by a reviewer from The Joint Commission, a non-profit organization providing accreditation and certification for healthcare organizations and programs that achieve high levels of quality and value. This was Inova Mount Vernon’s fifth such review and the first time it achieved a perfect score.

Stacey Schaab, director of quality at Inova Mount Vernon, said the reviewer — who interviewed at least 20 staff members, physicians and patients, as well as walked through the center’s joint replacement process from pre-op to discharge — was impressed from the moment she walked in the door. “People were greeting her, and she told us that she’d never been to a hospital like this,” said Schaab.

“She said she’d never seen a program run so nicely in the entire United States.” Schaab added.

Among the areas surveyed by the reviewer were how well patients are educated during the pre-op clinic, if the center meets specific regulatory criteria, and the quality of its nursing documentation. Receiving a perfect grade for nursing documentation was a particular point of pride for the Inova Joint Replacement Center, whose nurses put “a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this process,” according to the center’s executive director Mary Strait.

The reviewer was also impressed with the facility’s retention of high-performing staff, many of whom have worked there for 20 to 30 years, including Strait. Strait noted that the center’s surgeons are all nationally or internationally renowned physician specialists from Anderson Orthopaedic Clinic.

Following the flawless evaluation, around 75 hospital staff members gathered informally to celebrate the news. The entire staff will have the opportunity to revel in recent hospital successes at a picnic during National Hospital Week, May 6-12.

“It’s a big, big accomplishment for the facility,” said Curt McCormick, marketing communication executive at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. “We know our joint replacement program is known worldwide, but it’s good to see this validated by an outside third-party group.”