We’re delighted to announce that VHA has once again earned full accreditation status from Accreditation Canada (formerly known as the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation).

The surveyors were on site from November 29 until December 2,2009 to assess how well VHA meets national standards of excellence inquality and safety of home care services, organizational leadership,governance, and worklife. Accreditation Canada’s Qmentum accreditation program was a true measure of our abilities, standards and quality. This fourth accreditation survey was especially challenging, because the format was entirely new from previous years, however, we seized the opportunity to challenge ourselves and prove our standards of excellence.

VHA’s hard work, preparation and ongoing efforts to continually improve our services helped us meet all of the 400+ criteria, earning full accreditation status.

Even more exciting was the extremely positive feedback provided by the surveyors during the debrief. They highlighted our successes and strengths including VHA’s:

• Well-established patient safety culture
• Client-centric approach across the organization from leadership to the frontline staff
• Consistently high continuity of care levels
• Creativity in programming to respond to community needs and collaboration with community partners
• Strong and well-aligned strategic, operational and department plans
• Skilled, dedicated and involved Board
• Multitude of recent technological advancements
• High praise from clients

The surveyors were particularly impressed with VHA’s ethics framework, its internalization amongst staff and the Board, and VHA’s active role in the Community Ethics Network. In fact, VHA’s involvement in the Community Ethics Network has been put forth as a leading practice in the field.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’re going to start resting on our laurels (though some may be taking a well-earned post accreditation break)! While we met 100 per cent of criteria and required organizational practices, there are still plenty of areas where exciting developments, improvements and chances to grow are on the horizon.Our surveyors provided many great ideas to raise the bar at VHA and we plan on pursuing them over the next three years and beyond.

Thank you to all of our community partners, funders, donors and volunteers for their ongoing support: without you our work could not continue.