Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Achieves Accreditation from the Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) Program

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (https://www.cedars-sinai.org/) in Los Angeles, California, has been awarded Accreditation for a three-year term by the Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) Program (http://globalhealthcareaccreditation.com/) for its Medical Travel Services Program.

Consistently named by U.S. News & World Report as one of the United States' top hospitals in multiple categories, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a fast-growing, 896-bed tertiary hospital and Level I Trauma Center that serves more than 1 million people each year in over 40 locations, with more than 4,500 physicians and nurses and 1,500 research projects in motion.

According to Dr. Heitham Hassoun, Vice President and Medical Director of Cedars Sinai International, "Cedars-Sinai is a world-class teaching facility and a renowned center of medical research. As a result, we provide exceptional care to the people of our community, and to patients from across the country and around the world. Our goal is to ensure that all patients – regardless of their region or country of origin, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status or religious background – have access to high-quality healthcare services, compassionate care and personalized support throughout their healthcare journey. We are very pleased to have achieved GHA accreditation which underscores our commitment to the wellbeing of traveling patients and their companions."

The Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) Program was established with the goal of enhancing the patient experience for medical travelers across the entire Medical Travel Care Continuum. GHA standards, accredited by ISQua (through the International Society for Quality in Health Care External Evaluation Association), provide concrete and measurable value to patients by ensuring that the hospital or clinic has instituted processes that are customized to the medical travelers' unique needs and expectations and are consistently monitored for improvement. Additionally, GHA provides healthcare organizations with a unique opportunity to not only acquire skills and competencies designed to strengthen their medical travel services, but also impact business performance.

The accreditation survey at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was conducted remotely due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual accreditation process was developed by GHA to facilitate seamless communication, observation, and data sharing to maximize surveyor-client interactions and ultimately provide organizations with a similar level of value as would be provided during an onsite survey. 

Karen Timmons, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Healthcare Accreditation Program stated, "The assurance of quality and transparency in medical travel goes beyond the care delivered in the actual healthcare facility – it starts from the point of inquiry for the service and destination through arrival to the destination, and admission, discharge from the organization and stay at a hospitality site prior to travel back to the home base and through to ongoing communication after follow up service has been provided. The GHA Program, with its independent board comprised of a broad representation of key experts and stakeholders, seeks to bring clarity, and consensus around important issues facing medical travel, improving the patient experience and excellence of care. We congratulate Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for achieving GHA Accreditation and for its commitment to supporting the needs of medical travel patients."

About the Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) Program:

Founded in 2016, the Global Healthcare Accreditation for Medical Travel Services is the only accrediting body focused solely on medical travel services. GHA's international standards and professional norms for medical travel were developed in consultation with leading global experts in the industry, including providers, insurers and employers committed to establish best practices in medical tourism and health tourism, which support healthcare providers in validating quality and patient experience, increasing visibility, and implementing a sustainable business model for providers along the entire medical travel care continuum. GHA received ISQua's International Society for Quality in Health Care External Evaluation Association (IEEA) accreditation in 2019.

For more information visit: www.GlobalHealthcareAccreditation.com