LEONARDTOWN, Md. (July 16, 2009)—The Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Maryland, announced that St. Mary's Hospital was the recipient of its prestigious 2009 Delmarva Foundation Excellence Award for Quality Improvement. St. Mary's Hospital was one of only two facilities in Maryland to receive this award thus far this year. The hospital also won in 2004 and 2008.
"I am so proud of the entire hospital and all of our physicians and employees, who have worked so hard to reach this goal," said St. Mary's Hospital President and CEO Christine Wray. "It takes a great team, working together, to achieve this award."
This award recognizes individual hospitals' performance improvement in the four national inpatient clinical areas - acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, surgical care improvement and pneumonia. To receive the award, hospitals must meet or exceed the following criteria and requirements: improved individual performance measure rate to 90 percent or above on the 11 required measures and sustained the improvement for at least three consecutive quarters.
"St. Mary's Hospital is proud to present the community with this regional award as evidence of our commitment to excellence for a second year in a row," said Vice President Joan Gelrud. "We believe we owe every patient a safe and successful experience at St. Mary's Hospital. By having external agencies evaluate us against rigorous criteria and recognize our great outcomes, we are able to demonstrate to our community that we are a leader in health care so potential patients can have confidence in the care we provide."
The data used to achieve this award is publicly reported and available on many websites, such as Hospital Compare and the Maryland Health Care Commission's website, more commonly known as the "Maryland Hospital Report Card."