Quality

Maria Middelares General Hospital provides high-quality, safe care. However, we always want to learn more and improve, wherever possible. That is why we constantly ask our patients about their experiences and measure our results. We also have our quality examined externally by the government and external organisations. Thanks to this approach, we have obtained a number of quality labels.

Of the hospitalised patients, 97% would recommend Maria Middelares General Hospital to family and friends.

The hospital believes it is important to chart patient experiences. This is done in a variety of ways:

• Patient questionnaire

In addition to our own patient questionnaire, we also participate in questionnaires that are organised by the Flemish Institute for Quality and Care. Using the results, we can position ourselves in relation to other Flemish hospitals. The results can be found here: admissions and day admissions.

In 2020, hospitalised patients in Maria Middelares General Hospital rated their experience on average 8.7 out of 10. 97% of hospitalised patients would recommend Maria Middelares General Hospital to family and friends.

• Interviews and focus groups

• Direct feedback

• Information from suggestions and complaints

Flemish Institute for Quality and Care (formerly Flemish Indicators Project)

The Flemish Institute for Quality and Care brings physicians, professional organisations and scientists in different groups together to work on the quality of care. Together they determine the standard for each topic and what health care providers should measure. We call these indicators. Maria Middelares General Hospital actively participates in this project.

What do we measure?

• Breast cancer: diagnosis, treatment and survival rate
• Lung cancer: diagnosis and survival rate
• Rectal cancer: survival rate
• Patient experiences: survey of patients and analysis of the hospital website
• Hospital-wide: medication safety, basic hand hygiene requirements for health care providers, correct identification of patients, a standardised checklist for safe operations

The results

The results can be found at www.zorgkwaliteit.be. Those for Maria Middelares General Hospital can be found via this link.

Health care inspection

The Flemish government supervises the quality delivered by hospitals. To this end, they perform unannounced checks on various care journeys that patients undertake.

The reports can be found on the Health care Inspection website.

JCI accreditation

Maria Middelares General Hospital also wants to compare its quality with foreign hospitals. The hospital chose to be tested by the American Joint Commission International (JCI). This organisation focuses on the patient and evaluates in a practice-oriented way. Patient experiences also count in the evaluation.

In 2016, Maria Middelares General Hospital received its first international JCI quality label. A second accreditation followed in 2019, and a third in 2022.

The auditors emphasised that quality and patient safety must not remain theoretical targets but must be truly embraced by the entire organisation. For accreditation, the emphasis is on insight into organisation-specific risks and on systemic and continuous improvement.

ISO 27001 Certificate for Information Security

In July 2020, Maria Middelares General Hospital obtained the ISO 27001 Certificate for Information Security.

ISO 27001 is the main standard for information security.

Its focus is on information security, with the objective of ensuring confidentiality, availability and integrity in our hospital.

ISO 15189 for laboratory (clinical biology department)

In April 2020, the Maria Middelares General Hospital laboratory received the ISO 15189 certificate from the Belgian accreditation body Belac.

That means that the lab:

• has the technical competence to generate the correct lab results;
• provides high-quality care to the patients;
• has an elaborate and functional quality system.

BELAC 459-MED

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Our hospital improves the quality of care on the basis of information such as patient feedback, quality indicators, inspection reports, complaints, incidents, etc.

Learn more about our achievements in our annual report.

Do you want to make a suggestion?

Let us know through this contact form of the ombudsman service

Contact the Quality Control Unit

Digitally through kwaliteit@azmmsj.be