HIC receives international recognition as a 'Five-Star Hospital'

• Statista and the prestigious Newsweek magazine have awarded the Hospital Internacional de Colombia the Global Hospital Rating certification with a five-star rating, recognizing excellence and quality in its services.
• The dimensions evaluated by experts worldwide include talent attraction, patient experience and safety, innovation and digital health, cutting-edge infrastructure, and efficiency in service delivery.
• In Colombia, only two hospitals have received this certification.

Bucaramanga, May 2024. Just as in the culinary world, where Michelin stars denote quality and service in healthcare, the Global Hospital Rating certification represents the highest recognition for hospitals worldwide. 

According to Dr. Víctor Raúl Castillo Mantilla, President of the FCV, "Being recognized by Statista and Newsweek, one of the top-ranked magazines globally, is very satisfying for the FCV. It reaffirms the hospital's longstanding commitment to quality, innovation, and technology in healthcare." 

With this recognition, HIC becomes a benchmark for excellence, a five-star hospital committed to the care and well-being of patients and their families. It also confirms the institution's maturity, which works daily on improvement of its services, making a difference and transforming lives. 

It is worth noting that this certification adds to others received by the hospital, such as the Quality and Safety Seal in patient care granted by the Joint Commission International (JCI) (2019), National Health Accreditation by Icontec and the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (2021), HIMSS EMRAM 7, the world's highest standard in digital health (2022), and the Value-Based Medicine award for outcomes in patient care for heart attack (2023).

Five key areas of quality 

It is relevant to mention that to obtain the Global Hospital Rating certification, institutions must undergo a thorough evaluation and validation to determine if they meet the established quality criteria. Therefore, those who decide to do so may receive between one and five stars, or it could be denied. It is the first time HIC has applied and received the maximum rating. 

Among the dimensions evaluated by experts are talent attraction, patient experience and safety, innovation and digital health, cutting-edge infrastructure, and efficiency in service delivery. 

Regarding this, Dr. Sonia Stella Ramírez Ribero, Corporate Vice President of the FCV, stated that the hospital received a good score in aspects such as "the human management model, our way of educating and training collaborators through the Corporate University, the patient-centered care model in line with the institutional purpose of continuing to save lives, and the effort to become a digital hospital through HIMSS 7 accreditation, which has allowed us to have a robust information system, with traceability of all administrative and care processes that impact the experience."

Two key criteria in the evaluation related to infrastructure and efficiency in care. In the words of Dr. Lina Marcela Chaparro García, Director of FCV Strategy, "HIC integrates care from the perspective of prevention, treatment, and follow-up at home, without having to refer the patient to another institution, minimizing waiting times and guaranteeing treatments at the indicated time and place."  

Challenges for 2024 

The five-star certification is valid for three years, with the possibility of renewal in the future. Hence, the challenge for HIC is to "continue working on improving all processes. While we have a high level of results in management excellence, our purpose is to grow as an organization that impacts the well-being of the community," added the Director of FCV Strategy.