Franciscan St. Anthony Health-Michigan City has received the 2016 Women’s Choice Award as one of America’s Best Hospitals for Patient Safety. This evidence-based designation is the only patient safety award that identifies the country’s best health care institutions based on robust criteria that considers female patient satisfaction and clinical excellence.
“We are very proud to receive this prestigious award, which demonstrates an ongoing commitment to the highest quality of care and service to our patients,” said Trish Weber, hospital vice president of operations and chief nursing officer, adding, “Both patient safety and the experience of care remain of upmost importance to our entire staff as they consistently deliver excellent care to our community.”
“We are proud to learn that 3,500 hospitals were considered for this award and Franciscan St. Anthony was one of only 472 hospitals selected based on our ability to consistently demonstrate low rates of infection, surgical errors and a positive experience of care,” she said.
The list of award winners represents hospitals that have exceptional performance in limiting a wide range of hospital-associated infections and complications from surgery and medical treatment.
Hospitals that have earned the award have had a low incidence of problems arising from surgical errors and infections. The hospitals that report their frequency to The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are ranked for each of the following measures:
- Deaths among patients with serious treatable complications after surgery.
- Collapsed lung due to medical treatment.
- Serious blood clots after surgery.
- A wound that splits open after surgery on the abdomen or pelvis.
- Accidental cuts and tears from medical treatment.
- Serious complications.
- Central line-associated blood stream infections.
- Catheter-associated urinary tract Infections.
- Surgical site infection from colon surgery.
- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus blood laboratory-identified events (bloodstream infections.
- Clostridium difficile laboratory-identified events (intestinal infections).
Hospitals can be eliminated from consideration for the following reasons:
- Not reporting on at least four of the surgical complication measures (1-6) or 4 of the infection measures (7-11).
- Having a patient recommendation rating in the bottom 25 percent nationally.
- Receiving a CMS rating of “Worse than the U.S. National Rate” for any of the above measures.
- Not implementing safe surgery checklists.
For the remaining hospitals, the Women’s Choice Award averaged their rankings for all the measures (weighted slightly toward surgical errors as a result of the WCA’s women’s survey) and cut off the award list only including those that averaged in the top half nationally.
“We honor Franciscan St. Anthony for being named and recognized as a hospital of choice among women, for it represents the strongest and most important consumer message in today’s healthcare marketplace when considering that women account for 90 percent of all health care decisions. Improving patient safety is not only a matter of error prevention, it’s a focused effort to create the safest patient experience.” said Delia Passi, founder and CEO of the Women’s Choice Award.
For more information on the 2016 America’s Best Hospitals for Patient Safety visit http://www.womenschoiceaward.com/awarded/healthcare/