65th Med Group earns accreditation, passes inspection

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf
  • 65th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
LAJES FIELD, Azores, Portugal --  The 65th Medical Group, although small and undermanned, had two recent accomplishments that ensure its beneficiaries are getting quality care. They received a three-year accreditation from the U.S. Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Heath Care, Inc. and passed a "no-notice" inspection from the College of American Pathologist.

All the clinics and the hospitals in the Air Force go through the health care accreditation to measure the performance of care and promote safety and quality.

"It's a standard of care that the Air Force wants to show to its patients and we want to make sure that our levels of care meet those and national standards," said Ricky Baptista, 65th MDG director of quality.

Checklists were sent out to section heads and then a team inspected how they thought the AAAHC inspectors might inspect them.

"We gave them an opportunity to show themselves off," Baptista said. "We gave them an opportunity to show us how they are successful at doing what they do."

Some of that success and professionalism takes place when Airmen step up to fill roles that their undermanned group doesn't have the personnel for. One example is where non-commissioned officers are running programs that normally a company-grade officer would run.

"Truly every single member of the team directly or indirectly provided to this accreditation," Baptista said.

Capt. Jamie Williamson, 65th Medical Support Squadron chief of diagnostics and therapeutics, and her team completed self-inspections evaluating all their practices against customized checklists provided by the CAP. Additionally, the medical director, out of Lakenheath, came and performed a staff assisted visit.

"One of the greatest challenges at any small location is the high turn-over in personnel expertise," Williamson said. "Shorter tour lengths drive lower continuity and higher frequency of deficiencies in standards of practice. In addition, a credentialed pathologist is a CAP requirement and most small facilities do not have a pathologist on staff, so to ensure compliance with accreditation standards, small facilities are then required to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with a Pathologist from a facility within their region.  Such is the case here at Lajes with our medical director being stationed out of Lakenheath."

If they had not passed, the laboratory would have been closed down. Not only did they pass, but according to the inspector they did very well.

"We were held accountable against 494 standards of practice and received zero discrepancies," Williamson said.  "The inspector lauded, 'This lab is in the top five percent of all labs I've inspected,' which he has personally inspected over 40 in his career."