When patients see the Northwell Health-GoHealth name on the door of an urgent care center, they already feel confident in the care they will receive, Sarah Arora, the Northwell Health-GoHealth New York market president, said.
Now, they have another seal of approval to judge by.
The Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care centers received accreditation from the Urgent Care Association of America. Of the approximately 8,100 urgent care centers in the country, only 545 have attained accreditation, according to a Northwell news release.
With the rapid growth in the industry, there is a lot of variability in urgent care centers, Arora said, and not all centers provide the same services or quality of care.
“I see this as an extremely professional industry seal of approval,” Arora said. “You can think about it in any other way, any other product that you use the seal of approval that states something is organic or is FDA approved, that to me is a way that patients should be looking at this as well.”
The UCAOA looks at a number of areas, including safety, quality of care and services offered, according to Arora. In order to receive accreditation the centers have to meet standards across different areas.
To begin the process, the 40 GoHealth centers across New York had to first inspect their centers, Arora said. The UCAOA then picks a handful of centers within the network to randomly inspect, Arora said.
“It’s been interesting because the urgent care space has grown so quickly and whenever there’s growth in any industry there needs to be intense scrutiny on quality,” Arora said. “We’re just very excited we were able to pass muster with this organization that has created this program to ensure that clinical quality and patient care standards are met.”
Northwell Health-GoHealth also emphasizes clinical quality, Arora said. All the clinicians, including physician assistants and nurses, go through the same vetting process they would go through for Northwell. Arora said she believes UCAOA was impressed by both the quality of clinicians and the center’s vetting processes.
Adam Boll, vice president of Northwell Ventures, said the accreditation is just another step in Northwell Health-GoHealth affirming its commitment to providing the highest quality of urgent care to the communities it serves.
“For us it’s a key validator to what we believe to be the differentiating aspects from our urgent care to others in the network,” Boll said. “Being able to have an external accreditation agency validate our commitment … is amazing.”
