Pictured, from left, are Cannon Hospital president and CEO Norman Rentz, chief nursing officer Donna Anderson and director of quality improvement and risk management Pam Abercrombie.

PICKENS — Cannon Memorial Hospital recently received a new ISO 9001:2008 recertification after successfully passing an audit of its quality management system by DNV Healthcare Inc.

In 2012, Cannon was the first and only hospital system in South Carolina to receive the certification. The ISO certification is good for three years. Currently, only six other hospital systems in South Carolina are DNV accredited.

“We are pleased to receive this status of ISO certification,” Cannon president and CEO Norman Rentz said. “It recognizes the achievements made by the Cannon staff to ensure patient safety and quality outcomes. I believe this method is the best way to provide top-quality care while also having compassion for the individual patient’s needs.”

In 2009, Cannon left the Joint Commission accreditation program and joined DNV’s accreditation program. DNV’s program uses the National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations standards of evaluation. NIAHO encourages innovation within individual hospitals while helping them take advantage of system-wide practices.

“Cannon’s staff is committed to delivering quality healthcare services to our patients and community and believe that continuous improvement is the key to ensuring that goal is met,” said Pam Abercrombie, Cannon’s director of quality improvement and risk management.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) accreditation is an arduous process that tracks the methods which a hospital uses to improve and monitor its delivery of patient care, measures quality, and emphasizes the highest priority of eliminating errors. ISO standards are used to qualify standards in various other fields such as agriculture, construction, manufacturing, aerospace, medical devices and healthcare.

“With accreditation being so vital to the way hospitals operate, why not make it less about ‘gotcha’ and more about collaboration?,” DNV Healthcare asked in a news release. “Working together to understand what works for your hospital — and why. ISO 9001 is the world’s most-used and trusted quality management system for a reason. By infusing the annual accreditation survey process with a gradual compliance with ISO 9001, hospitals improve literally every single day. And they don’t go backwards when new ideas are discovered and implemented. That is the signature impact of ISO. Constant forward progress. In a word: sustainable.”

What does this mean to the patients being served at Cannon?

“ISO is based on eight quality management principles, the first being ‘customer focus,’” Cannon chief nursing officer Donna Anderson said. “Customer refers to patients, of course, but also to their families and all the other stakeholders involved in healthcare delivery. That includes outside providers to whom we refer patients, payers, vendors, and our own staff. Each of these groups has its own set of (sometimes conflicting) expectations and needs. ISO 9001 makes the customer focus the first requirement to be considered.

“I hope it communicates our commitment to working to enhancing our customer satisfaction.”

About Cannon Memorial Hospital:

Cannon Memorial Hospital started in 1947 as a three-room clinic, and now stands as a modern 55-bed facility with over 60 staff physicians. Services provided by Cannon include inpatient and outpatient services, a critical care unit, a 24 hour Emergency Department, nuclear medicine, radiology, laboratory, physical therapy, sleep clinic, and wellness programs. Cannon also owns and manages 3 family practice locations, a general surgery, and an orthopedic practice. For more information about Cannon Memorial Hospital, go online to www.CannonHospital.org.

In 2014, Cannon Hospital and the AnMed Health system signed an agreement to strengthen their partnership. Since that time, Cannon has had access to a variety of specialtists to better serve their patients.

AnMed Health has worked to ensure that Cannon Memorial Hospital is in a position to provide quality services consistent with a hospital of its size. Within its population, Pickens is seeing a growing need for services such as urology, oncology, cardiology, and pulmonology. These services are now being offered in conjunction with AnMed.

The AnMed Health system is home to more than 40 physician practices and a medical staff of almost 500 physicians specializing in primary care, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, oncology, orthopedics, cardiology, vascular medicine, electrophysiology, gastroenterology and several surgery specialties. To learn more about AnMed Health, go online to www.AnMedHealth.org.