OAKBROOK TERRACE, IL--(Marketwire - September 2, 2010) - Today, The Joint Commission announced that Alex Vandiver, MBB, has been appointed director of Business Excellence for The Joint Commission. He will also serve as director of the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, which aims to solve health care's most critical safety and quality problems.
As director, Business Excellence, Vandiver, a Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma, will be responsible for leading internal Robust Process Improvement™ (RPI) projects, utilizing methods and tools such as Lean Six Sigma, to address and solve problems. As director of the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, he will work with the Center's participants -- the nation's leading hospitals and health systems -- using RPI to analyze specific breakdowns in care, discover the underlying causes and develop targeted solutions that solve these complex problems. The inaugural project of the Center is hand-hygiene compliance and other projects in progress include hand-off communications and the prevention of wrong site surgery.
Vandiver joined The Joint Commission in 2006 as executive director of operations for Joint Commission Resources (JCR). In May 2009, he became a member of the Joint Commission RPI staff. Since then, he has taken a leadership role in the management of RPI activities for The Joint Commission, JCR, and the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare.
Prior to joining Joint Commission Resources, Vandiver worked extensively in the areas of process improvement and change management. He was trained in 1999 as a Black Belt while at GE, earning certification through the implementation of successful, sustainable improvements for GE customers such as Citibank, Wal-Mart and AARP. He also worked at Zurich Financial and Conseco, applying continuous improvement principles to help build a broad base of business enhancement opportunities in both financial and health care related services. Vandiver's customer centric, collaborative approach to problem solving has yielded project benefits and business improvements valued at more than $25 million during the past decade.
"Alex is a collaborative and engaging leader with a focus on customers and key stakeholders. The Joint Commission has benefitted greatly from his leadership and his commitment to RPI. We are pleased to have him in this new role," says Anne Marie Benedicto, chief of staff and executive vice president for support operations, The Joint Commission.
Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits more than 18,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, including more than 9,700 hospitals and home care organizations, and more than 6,800 other health care organizations that provide long term care, behavioral health care, laboratory and ambulatory care services. In addition, The Joint Commission also provides certification of more than 1,700 disease-specific care programs, primary stroke centers, and health care staffing services. An independent, not-for-profit organization, The Joint Commission is the nation's oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. Learn more about The Joint Commission at www.jointcommission.org.
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