Southwest Memorial Hospital scored high marks on a comprehensive accreditation survey that measures how well hospitals are complying with national health-care standards and regulations.

Surveyors with the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) had a tough time finding anything wrong with operations at Southwest, which earned a score of 97 out of a possible 100 during the inpection in early March.

"I have never heard of another peer group getting such a high score as we did," said Marcy Cummins, Southwest Memorial’s director of quality management. "We are all very proud because it shows how dedicated our staff is to providing the absolute best medical care."

The three-day survey analyzed every aspect of operations at the 61-bed acute-care facility, including medical care and equipment, procedures, department management, quality control, staffing, patient care, billing plus a lot more. The accreditation requirement is a grueling process for the staff, said Southwest’s CEO Bob, Peterson, as a team of surveyors arrive and tediously evaluate charts, patient files and procedural manuals to trouble- shoot for potential problems.

"I’m pretty sure that this is the highest score in the state," Peterson said.

Ironically, one of Southwest’s "problems" was that it has standards that are higher than the surveyors require, resulting in the loss of points.

"We would have had an even higher score, but because our standards dictate medical charts to be signed off in 24-hours instead of in three days as they require, we were docked," Cummins said. "But we prefer to have that higher standard and will continue with it."

The other offense was equally minor, resulting from a paperwork error on a two-week contract in which a company did not print in writing that they conform with JCAHO standards. Follow-up revealed that the company does comply but failed to put it on that particular contract, Cummins said.

Regionally, Southwest outperformed nearby hospitals that also participate in the JCAHO survey. Mercy-Centura Health in Durango scored an 94 during its last survey in 1998, while San Juan Regional in Farmington earned a score of 91 in 1999. For more information on hospital performance and non-compliance across the country, tap into the Internet at www.jcaho.org

The high score is even more impressive, Peterson said, because this year the standards were much stricter than in 1997, when Southwest Memorial earned a 94. He said that many hospitals expected to have a drop in scores because of the higher standards, created in part because of a recent government study that criticized the JCAHO accreditation study for being too easy on the industry.

"In the past they would give you a little time to correct a policy or mistake so that it was in compliance, but now they look back to make sure that you have been in compliance for one year, and there is no chance to correct it before the surveyors leave,"Peterson explained.

The survey now focuses more on tracking patient care from pre-admission to post-discharge, rather than whether each department is independently complying with all of the regulations, Peterson said.

"JCAHO has tightened up their standards and push for a more multidisciplinary approach that looks at the overall system with a focus on the patient as he or she goes through the system," he said.