ISO registered Chris Jordan, left, quality coordinator, and Michael Cruz, executive director, flank CDC Resourses' new banner at the Monticello facility. Photo provided CDC Resources, a social service agency serving children and adults with developmental disabilities since 1953, has officially been recognized as an ISO 9000 registered organization. The news came in late July after more than a year of work and preparation for a May audit to review CDC's quality policies and procedures.

"ISO 9000 is a rigorous quality standard familiar to manufacturing companies but is gaining acceptance as a way to benchmark healthcare and social service providers," said Michael Cruz, CDC executive director. "It is an internationally recognized hallmark of quality that focuses on customer service and processes that can be applied to any type of business. Importantly, ISO 9000 focuses on a climate of continuous improvement with measurable outcomes."

"We decided to pursue this because staff had seen how it could greatly strengthen the organization as long as it was able to keep paperwork and documentation under control," said Cruz. The agency has had independent accreditation surveys for the past 15 years through the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) and has benefited from these periodic reviews by independent surveyors.

Cruz noted that "CARF accreditation has been excellent for honing our services but the agency jumped at the opportunity to take its quality commitment to a higher level through a state grant covering initial expenses."

The ISO 9000 audit looked in-depth at how CDC operated its day services, group homes, supported living, employment services for adults and transportation. Two professional auditors spent four days at the organization and found eight minor non-conformances that CDC staff quickly addressed.

Chris Jordan, quality coordinator and business manager, had expected this success "but you are never sure because of the tremendous effort put into getting our procedures together."

ISO 9000 auditors spent considerable time verifying that staff had been well trained and knew key information about the agency as well as being clear on their specific job. Jordan went on to say that "it is much more than an administrative or paper review because they did a lot of random field checks. We found service gaps to close and vague procedures that needed to be revised".

CDC provides services in Carroll and White counties out of Monticello and serves residents in Benton, Jasper and Newton counties from its Rensselaer hub.

Cruz indicated that they will seek to leverage the ISO 9000 registration to secure additional packaging, assembly, salvage and other subcontract work.

"Maybe in the past a prospective customer might have had concerns about our capacity to meet their quality expectations. They can now see that we are very serious about quality and ready to take on challenging projects. Current examples are the ongoing work with Talbert's to supply side panels for use in a military application and our expanding document destruction business - CDC Shred.

Last fiscal year CDC served over 85 children and adults with disabilities from Carroll County.