Barnesville Ranks in Nation's Top 100 Performance Improvement Hospitals
Contact: Peggy Douglass, 740-425-5158
2004-03-22
Barnesville Hospital joins an elite group of the nation's most-improved hospitals with recognition shared by only 2 percent of America's hospitals. Staff have had a long-standing commitment to quality improvement that is receiving national recognition. The professional staff at Barnesville Hospital have been committed to their mission "to improve the community's health." All of their efforts appear to have paid off, as the hospital has been recognized on Solucient's inaugural awards list of the "Top 100 Performance Improvement Hospitals." Solucient, an Evanston, Ill.-based company, provides health care information to improve results for health care organizations. The award recognizes top hospitals that have developed an effective, organization-wide culture of performance improvement.
"Hospitals such as Barnesville Hospital have reduced mortality faster, reduced complications faster, cut expenses faster, and cut length of stay faster. They are increasing their value to their communities at a faster rate than other organizations," according to Jean Chenoweth, Solucient's executive director.
To select hospitals for its list of 100 performance improvement leaders, Solucient analyzed Medicare cost reports and MedPAR data for a 5 year period. A total of 2,866 hospitals nationwide were included in the study. The study identifies organizations that have improved critical measures at a faster rate than other U.S. hospitals. Barnesville Hospital joins 5 other Ohio hospitals and is the only small community hospital in Ohio to be recognized for the award.
Among the key findings:
- Performance improvement leader hospitals decreased their mortality rate by 24%, compared to 8% for other hospitals in the study.
- Patient complications decreased by 17%, while complications at other hospitals decreased by only 5%.
- Patients were able to return to everyday life faster than those at other hospitals. Patients at performance improvement leader hospitals were discharged nearly a day quicker.
- Expenses at performance improvement leader hospitals fell by 3%, while expenses at other hospitals increased by more than 15%.
"Our philosophy is that improving quality of care is an ongoing process. By pursuing continuous quality improvement, we believe we achieve excellence which is our standard," according to Jane Hall, R.N., Senior Director of Quality Improvement.
The eight measures of clinical quality practice, operations, and financial management used in the benchmark study include: risk-adjusted mortality index, risk-adjusted complications index, severity-adjusted average length of stay, expense per adjusted discharge (case- mix- and wage-adjusted), profitability, proportion of outpatient revenue, productivity, and coding specificity rate.
Recently, Barnesville Hospital developed a Care Management program and philosophy in its' continued efforts at performance improvement. Led by an interdisciplinary team of clinicians, the Care Management program is designed to facilitate care and recovery by focusing on the unique and individual needs of each patient in a holistic approach. "We believe when we expand our assessment and awareness of each patient's needs beyond the clinical spectrum to incorporate social, psychological, spiritual, and economic needs, these factors can positively influence a patient's recovery," noted Cynthia Touvelle, R.N., Director of Care Management,
According to Richard Doan, Chief Executive Officer at Barnesville Hospital, "Any good coach knows that it's the commitment and dedication of our team to continuous performance improvement that sets us apart from our peers. Our staff are to be congratulated and commended."
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