Southwest University Hospital, subordinated to Southwest University and located in Beibei District of Chongqing, is a grade-two comprehensive hospital integrating medical treatment, healthcare, prevention, rehabilitation and scientific research. It is the first college community health service center in Chongqing, as well as a model hospital of the medical combo of the People’s Hospital of Chongqing. Meanwhile, it is the training base for the College of Pharmacy of Southwest University, the College of Public Health Management of Chongqing Medical University, and Chongqing Medicine & Health College.

Hospital affiliated to university is a part of the university, and a service provider aiming at preventing and curing common diseases, and ensuring physical health of the faculties and students. The Hospital of Southwest University serves a population of nearly 80,000 from the university and surrounding communities. With the aging population, demand for rehabilitation is increasing.

In July 2018, the Hospital of Southwest University launched CARF accreditation with assistance from OKEWAY ShunDao. Based on research and investigation, OKEWAY discovered the following barriers for the hospital development.

1. Underdeveloped rehabilitation quality control system, obvious disadvantages in discipline positioning, resource distribution, flow standardization and discipline development;

2. Insufficient knowledge of rehabilitation practitioners for modern rehabilitation concepts, lack of effective training system;

Soft environment construction

•      Promote interdisciplinary cooperation mode
•      Standardize rehabilitation medical record and paperwork management
•      Renew modern rehabilitation concepts
•      Build diversified information communication platform
•      CARF course training

Infrastructure reconstruction

•      Reconstruction of accessible infrastructure
•      Diversified patient activity scene setting
•      Diversified rehabilitation element and information enrichment

                                                                 CARF training for employees        Health lecture for patients and their families   Emergency drill

July 2018                CARF accreditation launched 

December 2018       Guidance from senior Chinese hospital management experts 

March 2019             Guidance from senior Chinese hospital management experts 

June 2019                CARF expert survey

December 2019        CARF accreditation survey 

January 2020            CARF accreditation passed 

With assistance from OKEWAY, the Hospital of Southwest University passed three-year CARF accreditation in January 2020 for its comprehensive integrated inpatient rehabilitation program (adult). Meanwhile, OKEWAY has helped the hospital:

1. Established an interdisciplinary team work flow in line with modern rehabilitation requirements to comprehensively improve the competitiveness.

2. Set up a world-class outcome management system covering tool design, data collection, data analysis, and evaluation mechanism, improvement implementation and outcome publication.

Through coaching and training, OKEWAY has enabled the hospital to get familiar with applying the tools and templates. Also, by online and offline mentoring from the consultants, CARF concepts and hospital works are truly integrated to further promote hospital development. OKEWAY has been highly recognized by the leadership and all participants of the project, and the two parties has kept long-term cooperation thereafter.

I have been working here for more than ten years and I felt nothing change until the coming of CARF. I am willing to learn, though I have limited wisdom and energy. By learning CARF standards, I have new understanding for quality management, PDCA and object management. --- Director of the HR Department

CARF is a set of good standards and is helpful for improving hospital management. The administration attaches more importance to human orientation, cultural diversity and opinion input. Many trainings are given. The administrative staff have changed greatly, they have CARF concepts at least. --- Director of the Office

The greatest challenge comes after CARF accreditation. Are the department willing to continue the standards? We need to integrate CARF into our daily work. --- Director of the Quality Control Office