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Falls City Hospital Receives Patient Care Award

By Matthew Leaf

09/02/2014

(KTNC)--Community Medical Center in Falls City was honored with a 2014 Excellence in Patient Care Award at the Studer Group’s “What’s Right in Healthcare” Conference in Chicago. The Studer Group is a nationally known, outcomes-based healthcare improvement firm with more than 800 hospital clients. Its notification letter stated that it was recognizing Community Medical Center for “outstanding performance in patient care.” The letter also cited CMC’s improvements in all eight major components of the HCAHPS surveys on patient experience reported through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. CMC now typically ranks above the 90th percentile nationally regarding patient experience.

Regarding the award, Hospital CEO Ryan Larsen said, “We are pleased to receive this recognition. The nurses, technicians, aides, housekeepers, kitchen workers, therapists, clerks and others all work very hard to make this a place families can feel comfortable to bring their loved ones. While we still find areas to improve every day, it is nice for staff to see that their commitment to service is appreciated. We thank all of our patients for giving us the feedback we need to get better.”

Four employees accepted the award in Chicago, which was presented on the same night as the hospital’s board meeting. They were Jina Santo, Teresa Mackey, Shana Haynes and Amy Behrends. They also attended conference sessions on ideas to further improve patient safety, quality and experience. Studer Group representative Mary Davis later flew to Nebraska and attended a meeting of CMC managers on August 28 to congratulate the organization. In her remarks, she talked about the importance of health care in people’s lives. Staff discussion afterwards talked about how providing excellent care to the majority of patients still can fail to meet the needs of the few patients for whom communication problems or inefficiencies cause bad experiences. One staff member emphasized the need to “reach for ’Zero’ problems or errors, no matter how well we’re doing overall.”

Data regarding quality and patient experience is publicly available for all hospitals at www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare.

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