DaVita Hospital Services Earns Joint Commission Accreditation, Highlighting Proactive Commitment to Safety and Quality

DaVita Hospital Services has again earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Ambulatory Care Accreditation. This distinction underscores DaVita’s unwavering commitment to high standards of patient safety and quality care.

This achievement follows a rigorous, unannounced survey where DaVita demonstrated continuous compliance with performance standards. The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal is a widely recognized symbol of quality, reflecting an organization’s dedication to providing safe, effective, and high-quality patient care. For healthcare payors and hospital partners, this accreditation serves as a powerful validation of DaVita’s role as a trusted leader in inpatient kidney care.

In a statement from the Joint Commission, Ken Grubbs, DNP, MBA, RN, the chief nursing executive and executive vice president of accreditation and certification operations, shared:

“For more than 15 years, DaVita has worked alongside Joint Commission to uphold the highest standards of healthcare quality and patient safety through our accreditation process. As the first provider of inpatient acute dialysis and apheresis therapies to achieve Joint Commission accreditation, DaVita set a pioneering benchmark in the industry.

Beyond accreditation, DaVita continues to lead by centering the patient in all they do — standardizing clinical operations, strengthening accreditation processes, and advancing patient care initiatives. These efforts demonstrate its unwavering commitment to safety, a culture of performance improvement, and innovation. DaVita’s influence also extends through active engagement across the industry — sharing leading practices to help drive excellence.

Today, nearly 500 of DaVita’s in-patient acute dialysis programs have earned Joint Commission accreditation — a powerful testament to their commitment to continuous quality improvement. These programs represent hospitals that voluntarily undertook the rigorous accreditation process, a significant achievement. We commend DaVita’s dedication to delivering safe, high-quality care to patients and communities nationwide.”

DaVita Hospital Services became the first Joint-Commission accredited provider of inpatient kidney care and apheresis therapies in 2013, and today, they partner with more than 750 hospitals across the U.S. With more than 25 years of experience, DaVita Hospital Services completes approximately 1.3 million kidney care procedures each year.

“Safety is our top priority,” says Theresa Stright, DHA, MHA, BSN, RN, the vice president of clinical services for DaVita Hospital Services. “Receiving this accreditation from the Joint Commission affirms the hard work and dedication of our teammates and our strong collaboration with our hospital partners. It’s a reflection of our proactive culture, where we don’t just meet standards — we seek to exceed them.”

To learn more about DaVita’s safety initiative, check out this article published in The Source™, published by The Joint Commission.

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DaVita Hospital Services became the first Joint-Commission accredited provider of inpatient kidney care and apheresis therapies in 2013, and today, they partner with more than 750 hospitals across the U.S. With more than 25 years of experience, DaVita Hospital Services completes approximately 1.3 million kidney care procedures each year.

“Safety is our top priority,” says Theresa Stright, DHA, MHA, BSN, RN, the vice president of clinical services for DaVita Hospital Services. “Receiving this accreditation from the Joint Commission affirms the hard work and dedication of our teammates and our strong collaboration with our hospital partners. It’s a reflection of our proactive culture, where we don’t just meet standards — we seek to exceed them.”

To learn more about DaVita’s safety initiative, check out this article published in The Source™, published by The Joint Commission.

Read Now

This year’s survey resulted in a 49% reduction in findings, a testament to DaVita’s dedication to safety. This year, the Joint Commission spotlighted DaVita’s groundbreaking system-wide safety initiative to standardize hemodialysis order sets — a template healthcare providers use to efficiently order all care for someone receiving dialysis treatments — across its network of hospital partners. Incomplete orders can introduce patient safety risks, including treatment errors or care delays.

With support from Stright and David Mahoney, MD, chief medical officer for DaVita Hospital Services, a DaVita team completed an audit across its network of hospital partners and identified varying configurations across different electronic medical records (EMRs) as a primary factor affecting standardization for order sets. The team then developed and deployed a playbook that facilitated updates and changes at the local level to foster standardization, closer compliance with the Joint Commission’s standards and improved patient safety.

“It’s critical that we continue to look at the bigger picture,” says Samantha Guess, national director of clinical services for DaVita Hospital Services. “If you only look at the results of one survey, you could be hindering your ability to see a larger problem. We were able to identify a systemic issue, and the collaboration we have with our hospital partners has made a meaningful difference in safety and quality for the patients we help care for.”