Every hospital that I have held privileges at has been JCAHO accredited.  I remember during my training that whenever JCAHO was coming around, the entire hospital was up in arms, making sure that every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed.  That is because the Joint Commission is considered to be the standard to which other accrediting organizations are measured.

According to the Joint Commission web site, the value of the Gold Seal of Approval is:

Value of The Gold Seal of Approval™

Because The Joint Commission standards are regarded as the most rigorous in the industry, health care organizations that choose to be evaluated by The Joint Commission are therefore committed to providing the highest level of quality care to their patients. The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval™ is a clear sign that the accredited organization has demonstrated compliance to the most stringent standards of performance.

To maintain and earn accreditation, a health care organization undergoes an extensive unannounced on-site review by a select team of Joint Commission professionals such as administrators, physicians, and nurses at least once every three years. The purpose of the review is to evaluate the organization’s performance in areas that affect patient/resident care.

Through an assessment of an organization’s processes and personal visits with its patients/residents and staff, the organization is evaluated.  Accreditation may then be awarded based on how well the organization met Joint Commission standards.

Getting our accreditation was a voluntary process.  Deciding to put our practice on the line for the scrutiny of the Joint Commission was definitely a step of confidence in the quality that we have implemented and the standards and procedures the we operate by in our office.  The process is a difficult and detail oriented one, but at the end I have to say that it was worth every ounce of effort my staff and I put into getting our Gold Seal of Approval.  Participating in a process like this was like running our practice through a fine toothed comb and plugging all the leaks.  With Joint Commission accreditation comes the peace of mind that we have implemented policies and procedures that comply with the National Patient Safety Guidelines and the standards that the CDC places for infection control and patient safety.

What mattered most was when I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Mike Dye, the Senior Associate Director at the Joint Commission.  During our conversation I was informed that we are the only Podiatric practice in California to get Joint Commission accreditation for an office based surgical facility!  That reaffirms our commitment to our patients and making sure that we are constantly pushing the envelope for what is considered the highest quality of care.

Our mission, is to create a surgical practice that provides our patients
a state-of-the-art, no compromise experience,
that focuses on quality results, in the safest,
most technologically advanced environment available today.
We strive to meet and exceed this goal,
with every patient interaction
ensuring we deliver the highest quality of care in foot surgery.

Dr. Ali Sadrieh

To visit the Joint Commission web site and read about our accreditation visit this link:

Joint Commission Quality Check

Like most American’s, I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my family, taking time to appreciate the relationships that make our lives special.  During this time of year, I feel that I have a lot to be thankful for.  Having the opportunity to do what I do is truly a privilege.  But what makes my career even more rewarding are the relationships I have built over the years with my patients and staff.  I consider myself blessed to have a practice that can focus on providing the highest quality of care so there is time to connect with my patients and get to know “the person attached to the feet” I work on.  This is something rare in medicine today.

When I decided to venture into the realm of innovation and creating new procedures, I couldn’t imagine that we would be where we are today.  I was humbled to see an episode of The Doctor’s Show over Thanksgiving weekend “The Most Dramatic Surgeries and Procedures”, and notice that a segment that we did back in November of 2008 was selected as one of the 5 surgeries for this show.

This was particularly humbling since the show featured surgeries that saved the lives of children by taking congenital heart deformities and correcting them, surgically correcting massive tumors from a little girls face, and blood transfusions that helped a little boy walk.  The Doctor’s Show has become the number one resource for people all across America to refer to for up-to-date information on cutting edge medicine with objective, trustworthy reports.  To be placed among the great surgeons who performed such remarkable procedures on this episode is an honor and a privilege.

The impetus behind creating the Perfect 10! Aesthetic Toe Shortening procedure was not just vanity.  To dismiss the functional effects of this procedure would be unfair to the thousands of women we have helped around the world.  The concept behind this remarkable procedure was simply to acknowledge the realities of the world we live in today and create a safe, reliable procedure that gives women an option to relieve pain and correct the structural problem of having toes that are too long and on their way to becoming hammered (if they weren’t already).

The fact is that women deal with the imposition of fashion if they function in the professional world.  The shoes that a professional woman has to wear are not the best for your feet or the most comfortable.  So instead or pretending that this massive problem is going to go away, I decided to create a procedure that treats the problem with the toe structure so that we could prevent future deformity and unnecessary pain or discomfort.

It would have been much easier to huddle in the safety of the “standard of care” mentality and stick with traditional techniques such as K-Wire fixation, or making incisions on the top of the toes (which is how 99% of toe surgeries are performed in the country), and waiting to do surgery only when there is pain is considered an ethical decision (when pain is usually associated with a degenerative or arthritic joint, a sign of having waited too long to correct the problem).  This just wasn’t good enough… so I created a new procedure.

Five years has gone by and we have had the pleasure of treating thousands of women and men from all over the world for this often painful and limiting condition.

Once again, I am humbled.

Since the beginning of this journey, the philosophy of my practice has been to provide the best foot surgery has to offer.  Using the most advanced techniques, investing in the most current technology, and keeping our practice focused on quality, not volume.  My commitment to our past, present and future patients will never change, “the practice of foot surgery at the highest level without compromise in personal attention, technological advancement, or procedural innovation”.

Dr. Ali Sadrieh