Quality and Patient Safety

The Joint Commission

The Joint Commission is the nation’s leading standards-setting and accrediting body for health care organizations. Castle Medical Center has consistently earned accreditation status with The Joint Commission, which conducts surveys of the hospital every three years. Achieving accreditation means that an organization complies with The Joint Commission’s standards and continuously makes efforts to improve the care and services it provides.

Hawai‘i State Award of Excellence

In 2003, Castle Medical Center won the Noelo Po‘okela Award, one of the Hawai‘i State Awards of Excellence. The awarding body uses the Malcolm Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence, which are based on world-class standards of organizational quality.

NQF and Leapfrog’s Safe Practices

Modern health care contains highly complex and high-risk processes. Castle Medical Center has completed the Leapfrog Group survey of 30 patient safety practices endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF). These practices are capable of reducing preventable medical mistakes. Castle Medical Center already performs most of these practices and is actively implementing additional safety practices based on the recommendations of the NQF.

American Heart Association
Performance Achievement Award

In 2006, Castle Medical Center received the American Heart Association’s “Get With The Guidelines—Coronary Artery Disease” (GWTG—CAD) Annual Performance Achievement Award. The award recognized Castle’s commitment to quality and success for twelve consecutive months in implementing a higher standard of cardiac care that effectively improves treatment of patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease. As a result of receiving the award, Castle was mentioned in the July, 2006, issue of U.S. News & World Report, “America’s Best Hospitals.”

To receive the award, Castle consistently complied for one year with the requirements in the GWTG—CAD program. Under the program, patients are started in the hospital on aggressive risk-reduction therapies, such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, aspirin, ACE inhibitors, and beta-blockers, and receive smoking-cessation and weight-management counseling and referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before they are discharged. Hospitals that receive the award have demonstrated that during the twelve previous months, at least 85 percent of their eligible coronary patients (without contraindications) are discharged following the American Heart Association’s recommended treatments.

Patient Care and Safety Concerns

If you have any concerns about quality or safety of patient care, please contact our Quality Resources Department at (808) 263‑5363 or Administration office at (808) 263‑5142. Ultimately, if the concerns cannot be reasonably addressed at this level, you may provide information directly to the State Department of Health’s Office of Health Care Assurance at (808) 586‑4080, or The Joint Commission at (800) 994‑6610.

Alternatively, you can click here to avail yourself of Castle’s feedback form. Your form will be read by our Call Center, which is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Fridays. (It is closed on holidays.) After reading your form, the Call Center will then forward it on to the appropriate persons in the hospital.