COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Colloquium announced April 1 that IU Health Blackford Hospital became the first critical care access hospital in America to achieve Colloquium Heart Failure Accreditation.
Critical access hospitals (CAHs) serve rural areas and have fewer than 25 beds. CAHs often do not have the resources to care for those with heart failure. Connecting the CAH with a larger Colloquium accredited heart failure community hospital amplifies the resources available to the CAH and their community. IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital is the sponsoring hospital for Blackford. Ball achieved Colloquium Heart Failure Center Accreditation in August 2011.
"IU Health Blackford is thrilled to work with Ball Memorial and the Colloquium benefiting heart failure patients," said Steven West, Blackford CEO. "Achieving Heart Failure Accreditation is of recognition of the hard work our staff performs on a daily basis."
"Small community hospitals are really the ones who bring personal high touch to their patients. The clinicians know each and every one of their patients as members of their community," said Pat Gorman, Heart Failure Coordinator at Ball Memorial. "The Colloquium's addition of the CAHs to the heart failure accreditation process adds to the power of change. There is a great deal our healthcare system can learn from the more personal smaller community hospitals."
"The IU Health Blackford heart failure accreditation process through the Colloquium has the potential to become a national model for Critical Access Hospitals," said Sarah Seward, Blackford Heart Failure Coordinator. "Collaboration with our regional facility, Ball Memorial, was invaluable and foundational building the model of care we are providing for our patients daily."
"The clinicians and administrators at Blackford deserve national recognition for their breakthrough efforts to bring state of the art heart failure care to Hartford City, Indiana," said Tony Joseph, MD, President and CEO of the Colloquium. "In the 21st century we need to develop new ways to tackle how we provide healthcare. The successful collaboration between Blackford and Ball Memorial is an example of how hospitals can work together to provide a structured approach to population management – while simultaneously respecting each patient as an individual person who lives within their community."
The Colloquium's unique heart failure accreditation process builds communities of hospitals – experts working with experts across the country. Member hospitals work within four established domains of heart failure: Community, Hospital, Clinicians, and Science using the Colloquium's continuum of care model that leads to:
- An integration of heart failure care, from antecedents to early diagnosis and advanced care
- Streamlined processes across the entire continuum of care beginning in the community
- Enabling individuals to participate in their own care with more independence and less hospitalization
- Collaboration with other Colloquium member hospitals across the country
The Healthcare Colloquium is the only accrediting body focused solely on Heart Failure Accreditation and is the only hospital membership organization providing accreditation. Experts from the various member hospitals develop accreditation criteria within four domains: Community, Hospital, Clinician, and Science collaboratively using process improvement methods.