Delnor Hospital achieves obesity treatment accreditation

GENEVA - The Northwestern Medicine Metabolic Health and Surgical Weight Loss Center at Delnor Hospital is among the first in the state to achieve the new Obesity Medicine Qualification Accreditation.

The national program recognizes centers that offer an integrated approach to weight loss for the treatment of metabolic and bariatric patients. The accreditation program is a collaboration between the American College of Surgeons and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Delnor Hospital's bariatric surgery program earned the group's Comprehensive Center Accreditation in 2017. The new Obesity Medicine Qualification Accreditation option provides an additional designation level for facilities that offer nonsurgical treatment for patients who are overweight or obese. Centers with this designation also employ nutritional interventions, physical activity, behavioral change and pharmacotherapy to treat patients.

"This accreditation is validation of the multidisciplinary approach our center was founded on," said Dr. Matthew R. Pittman, medical director of the weight loss center at Delnor Hospital. "Successfully maintaining weight loss can't be done simply with a surgery or a pill. Obesity is a chronic disease process that requires a highly individualized program to help patients make a lifelong commitment to a healthy diet and routine exercise."