Press Release
Elmhurst Memorial Hospital recognized in national quality study
For immediate release, August 31, 2009
Contact
Kyle Bauer, Public Relations Coordinator, 630-993-5702
ELMHURST — Elmhurst Memorial Hospital (EMH) has been named a top performer in a national project that rewards hospitals for delivering high quality care in select clinical areas.
Coordinated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Premier healthcare alliance, the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) is the first national project of its kind, designed to determine if economic incentives to hospitals are effective at improving quality of care. The project tracks process and outcome measures in five clinical areas – acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, coronary artery bypass graft, pneumonia, and hip and knee replacement.
Based on the fourth-year results, EMH was recognized as a top performer in the areas of acute myocardial infarction and heart failure. The Hospital also received recognition as being a top improver in hip and knee replacement. Over the course of the first four years of the project, EMH has received a total of nine awards.
“These awards are the product of the hard work of many people throughout the organization,” said Leo Fronza, president and chief executive officer. “All of our physicians and clinicians are to be commended for helping to achieve these stellar results.”
“We have a long-standing commitment to providing outstanding patient care at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital,” added Connie Parker, M.D., vice president of medical affairs. “Our successes in this project are a testament to our ongoing efforts to improving the quality of care we offer our patients.”
According to an analysis of mortality rates at the 250 hospitals participating in the HQID, improvements in quality of care saved an estimated 4,700 acute myocardial infarction patients across the first four years of the project. In addition, patients received approximately 500,000 additional recommended evidence-based clinical quality measures, such as smoking cessation, discharge instructions, pneumococcal vaccination and certain measures that reflect the timing and appropriateness of care (such as door to balloon time, choice and timing of antibiotics, use of beta blockers and assessment of left ventricular function).
Additional research using the Hospital Compare dataset showed that, by March 2008, HQID participants scored on average 6.9 percentage points higher (94.64 percent to 87.36 percent) than non-participants when evaluating 19 common Hospital Compare measures.