Lawrence General Hospital is celebrating the reaccreditation of its
Weight Management and Bariatric Center from the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program of the American College of Surgeons and American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
The recent accolades from MBSAQIP represent the Weight Loss Center’s commitment to patient care and performance standards, according to Bariatric Program Coordinator Ketna Patel, PA-C. The initial accreditation came in 2015 and took just two short years.
“We are ecstatic to be reaccredited by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program especially after the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Patel said. “We are grateful to all the departments of Lawrence General with whom the program works closely to assure our patients receive the best quality of care. Our work continues as we strive to grow the program to care for and treat a disease that affects so many in our community.”
In a letter to Weight Management and Bariatric Center Dr. Roy Shen, MBSAQIP celebrated Lawrence General’s “commitment to providing and supporting quality improvement and patient safety efforts for metabolic and bariatric surgery patients.”
“As an accredited program you have demonstrated that your center meets the needs of your patients by providing multidisciplinary, high-quality, patient-centered care,” the agency wrote in the letter.
This accreditation, valid through 2025, demonstrates Lawrence General’s commitment to delivering the highest quality of care for bariatric surgery patients. To earn MBSAQIP accreditation, the hospital met the essential criteria that ensures our ability to support a bariatric surgical care program and measures up to the institutional performance requirements outlined by the MBSAQIP accreditation standards.
Joining Shen at the Weight Loss Center are bariatric surgeons Rebecca Shore, MD, Douglas Campbell, MD, and Caitlin Polistena, MD. The group sees patients at Andover Medical Center.
Bariatric surgery is appropriate for certain people with weight problems for whom diet and exercise have not worked. Accredited bariatric surgery centers, like Lawrence General, provide both the hospital resources necessary for optimal care of morbidly obese patients and the support and resources necessary to address the full spectrum of care and needs of bariatric patients, both pre- and post-operatively.
Bariatric surgeries are among the most common elective surgeries in the U.S. — with more than 198,000 bariatric surgeries performed in 2020 based on a report from the
American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS).
The Weight Management and Bariatric Center is located on the third floor of Andover Medical Center at 323 Lowell St., Andover. You can reach the office by calling 978-946-8450. The office is open Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. You can also contact the office at
WeightManagement@lawrencegeneral.org.