A step in the right direction for an important community institution

I remember the moment when I learned the Joint Commission had issued a preliminary denial of accreditation to St. Michael Medical Center. It was a Thursday morning in late September when I searched for Harrison Medical Center on the Joint Commission website. After a four-day visit in August that reviewed a checklist of 250 items, they determined: “Existence…of a condition, which in the Joint Commission's view, poses a threat to patients or other individuals served.” I was stunned.

I remember reading hospital president Chad Melton’s comments published in the Kitsap Sun, acknowledging SMMC had been cited for “small tweaks,” and “process improvement things.” Things? Later, I learned there were 38 deficiencies noted, such as difficulty with: reporting critical lab results on a timely basis; inspecting, testing, and maintaining medical equipment; implementing its infection prevention plan; honoring a patient's right to give or withhold informed consent; and making food available to its patients, just to name a few.

On Sept. 29, Melton told the Kitsap Sun, “They cleared us of the deficiencies that they saw when they were here at the facility, and it will be a multi-step process in order to get fully accredited again, which will happen over course of the next 60 days.” Sixty days came and went without a word. The problem seemed bigger than originally thought.

You may think that I want to slam SMMC again, but I don’t.

Because I remember the moment when I learned that SMMC had received accreditation from the Joint Commission. It was exactly one week ago, on Friday afternoon, Jan. 6, more than 120 days after the preliminary denial was issued.

It is a welcome outcome for our community, which needs a fully functional hospital to serve patients. I was relieved and thrilled to hear the news.

If you doubt my enthusiasm, let me tell you why Kitsap’s only hospital is important to me in the first place. I was born at Harrison Medical Center on Cherry Avenue in Bremerton. I was raised within its walls. I spent many Saturday mornings with my father while he rounded on new babies in the nursery. To hear my dad tell it, the very first word I ever read was "staff," when I pointed out a small wooden placard which would be placed on the dashboard of his car to allow him to park at the back of the hospital. Allegedly, I was three years old at the time. At five, I declared, “I was born to be a doctor.” I still love what I do each day.

The old Harrison Hospital, and the many physicians working inside of it, inspired me to become a physician. Of course, it has been difficult to reconcile the healthcare dreams of that little girl with the healthcare reality more than forty years later. Growing up, I always imagined working at Harrison Hospital as a doctor someday. Much had changed by the time I returned home to practice with more than a decade of education and training behind me. After the inpatient pediatric ward closed, my work became exclusively clinic-based. While the healthcare landscape morphed, my goal to serve children in this community has not.

I know how important healthcare is to this community. Over the last six months, nearly 100 readers have written letters to me expressing their concerns after reading my columns. Many letters published in the Kitsap Sun shared experiences — both good and bad — at SMMC. Others have stopped me on the street to let me know they were inspired to call or write elected leaders after reading the news coverage in the Kitsap Sun. Thank you for getting involved.

Good things are happening. Multicare plans to build a freestanding emergency facility on Wheaton Way. A working group is being put together to evaluate the creation of a public hospital district to offer services we currently lack, such as mental health care, end-of-life care, and full spectrum women’s care. And SMMC has been fully accredited by the Joint Commission once again. But now is the time to do more.

This column is a call-to-action for this community to remain engaged in healthcare. We must not be complacent. And here’s why: While the average number of hospital beds in the nation is 2.4 per 1,000 people, Washington State ranks dead last amongst all 50 states, with just 1.6 beds per 1,000 people. And Kitsap County ranks even lower than that, with half as many beds as the state average, 0.8 per 1,000 people.

While accreditation of SMMC is certainly a step in the right direction, our community remains at the mercy of a broken healthcare system. And we have a long way to go to ensure access to healthcare for all.

Dr. Niran Al-Agba is a pediatrician in Silverdale and writes a regular opinion column for the Kitsap Sun. Contact her at niranalagba@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: St. Michael Medical Center gets Joint Commission accreditation