EvergreenHealth Weight Loss & Bariatric Care Achieves Comprehensive Center with Obesity Medicine Qualifications Accreditation

Kirkland, Wash. – The Weight Loss & Bariatric Care practice at EvergreenHealth recently received accreditation as a Comprehensive Center with Obesity Medicine Qualifications by the American College of Surgeons and the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP). The achievement is awarded in partnership with the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and reflects EvergreenHealth’s standards for meeting the needs of patients by providing multidisciplinary, high-quality, patient-centered care.

The Weight Loss & Bariatric Care practice’s MBSAQIP accreditation acknowledges the health system’s commitment to providing and supporting quality improvement and patient safety efforts for those seeking metabolic care and bariatric surgery. This accreditation puts EvergreenHealth among the first 25 organizations in the nation to have achieved a dual center of excellence certification in bariatric surgery and obesity medicine.

“We’re so honored to have earned this prestigious accreditation, which is a testament to hard work of so many providers and staff members who are dedicated to excellence in how we care for our patients,” said John Dockins, MD, FACS, FASMBS, DABOM, Medical Director of Bariatric Surgery at EvergreenHealth. “On behalf of our team, we’d like to thank EvergreenHealth’s leadership, our community surgeons, the operating team, anesthesia group, our nutrition experts and the perioperative and inpatient nursing teams for their unwavering dedication.”

As a weight loss and healthy lifestyle education practice, the team offers a range of services supported by providers with expertise in several tailored care pathways that share a goal of providing patients with the nutritional, psychological and physical resources to help them lose weight, keep it off, and live their healthiest best.

“Obesity is a growing epidemic in our nation, and we know that our community needs this unique program so patients can improve their quality of life. All weight loss patients deserve highly personalized, expert clinical care delivered with compassion and respect, which are pillars of our practice,” said Sonia Hans, MD, an obesity medicine expert at EvergreenHealth, who is board-certified in obesity medicine, endocrinology and internal medicine.

MBSAQIP works to advance safe, high-quality care for bariatric surgical patients through the accreditation of bariatric surgical centers. A bariatric surgical center achieves accreditation following a rigorous review process during which it proves that it can maintain certain standards of practice, physical resources and human resources. All accredited centers, like EvergreenHealth, report their outcomes to the MBSAQIP database.

As part of the evaluation process, MBSAQIP site surveyor Brandon Williams, MD, FACS, emphasized the importance of establishing quality bariatric care and obesity medicine programs. “This is a special program,” he said of EvergreenHealth. “People need this,” he explained, adding that EvergreenHealth’s accreditation positions the health system to help serve even more community members.

Learn more about EvergreenHealth’s Weight Loss and Bariatric Care.