Looking For and Hasting Unto. . .

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) sets standards for healthcare organizations and issues accreditation to organizations that meet those standards. JCAHO periodically conducts surveys at each institution to verify that the organization complies with the standards and continuously makes efforts to improve the quality of care and level of services it provides.

Our hospital is waiting for such a survey. No one knows when the surveyors will come. It can happen at anytime and we have been trained to be prepared at any given moment. Each employee is expected to know the standards and perform by them in their daily activities on a routine basis. Still, there is a certain amount of apprehension involved when a survey is due and still pending. Every day you wonder, "Will they come today?" "Are we ready?" When the surveyors come, you hope and pray that all is in order and that the recommendations for improvement are few, or even better, are none.

A JCAHO survey is one of the biggest events a hospital faces. Yet, for all of us, a bigger event waits in the future. Like the JCAHO survey, we have no idea when it will happen, and it behooves us to be ready, to be prepared and to be "looking for and hasting unto..."

"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night;

Image by SiamEye via Flickr

in the which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,
the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved,
what manner of persons
ought ye to be
in all holy conversation and godliness,
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God,
wherein the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Nevertheless we, according to His promise,
look for new heavens and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Wherefore, beloved,
seeing that ye look for such things,
be diligent that ye may be
found of Him in peace,
without spot, and blameless."
2Pe 3:9-14