LEONARDTOWN, Md. (June 27, 2010) - For the third consecutive year and the fourth year overall, St. Mary's Hospital has received the prestigious 2010 Delmarva Foundation Medicare Excellence Award for Quality Improvement.
This accomplishment comes from the hospital's outstanding quality improvement measures that ensure proper care for all patients. The hospital previously received the award in 2004 and in 2008 and 2009. St. Mary's is one of only eight Maryland hospitals, four of which are MedStar Health affiliates, to receive this year's award.
"Receiving this award three years in a row is an indicator that everyone at this hospital - physicians, clinical staff and all associates - has worked exceptionally hard to achieve this goal," said St. Mary's Hospital President Christine Wray. "St. Mary's has a terrific team that works together across the board on behalf of patients to make us a quality hospital."
The Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care (DFMC), the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Maryland, recognizes individual hospital performance improvement in the four national inpatient clinical areas - acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, surgical care improvement and pneumonia.
To merit the award, hospitals must meet or exceed the following criteria and requirements: improve individual performance measure rate to 90 percent or above on 15 required measures and sustain the improvement for at least three consecutive quarters.
"This is clear evidence of our dedicated commitment to excellence," said Vice President Joan Gelrud. "We believe that every patient deserves a safe, successful outcome here. Meeting such exacting criteria and achieving this award for three consecutive years sends a message to our patients that they can have confidence in us."
DFMC is a nonprofit organization located in Maryland that has been monitoring and improving the quality of health care for citizens of Maryland since 1973. As the federally designated Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for the state, DFMC is under contract to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), to improve the quality of health care for Medicare beneficiaries.
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."
Source: SMH