LOVELAND, Colo. (June 12, 2008) – A national healthcare organization that helps hospitals improve performance has recognized McKee Medical Center for efficiently providing outstanding patient care and setting standards in clinical excellence. McKee was one of 26 winners out of more than 3,800 considered for the awards.
The Premier Award for Quality recognizes leading health care organizations that efficiently provide outstanding patient care and consistently set the standard in clinical excellence nationwide. Distinguished by its consideration of performance-based criteria, including clinical quality outcomes, resource utilization and clinical process indicators, the award measures top performers at the overall hospital level.
“McKee prides itself on the quality of care we provide our patients as a result of an ongoing focus on our five priorities: employee engagement, patient satisfaction, quality care, physician relationships and financial strength,” said Ann Rydesky, director of quality for McKee. Rydesky accepted the award in Nashville, Tenn., on Thursday.
“This award is different from other quality awards because it differentiates the winners as industry leaders by recognizing clinical excellence in quality of care and operational efficiencies,” said Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president of Premier Healthcare Informatics. “Premier is pleased to honor this elite group of hospitals for the high quality of patient care they offer to improve the health of their communities.”
All acute care inpatient facilities in the United States that submitted data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the CMS Hospital Compare project were considered for the award. Using MedPar 2006 data, Quality and Efficiency Indexes were calculated for 62 disease groups and at the overall hospital level. Quality was measured by the incidence of three adverse outcomes: mortality, morbidity and complications. Those are combined into a single Quality Index using the preference weightings from the Corporate Hospital Rating Project. The efficiency index was generated using length of stay to proxy for resource utilization.
Acute care facilities attaining the top 1 percent designation are identified as having scores in the top two quintiles for process of care and in 10 out of 62 disease groups and at the overall hospital level for quality and efficiency. Additionally, hospitals had measures for quality and efficiency that were equal to or exceeded expected outcomes.
Premier Inc. is a network of hospitals and health care systems created by its members to collect, analyze and share clinical and financial data from member hospitals. The group organizes committees of members to make decisions and set directions for best practices based on the data. Premier Inc. is a 2006 Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award recipient.
Contact: Sara Quale
Phone: (970) 635-4031
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: June 12, 2008