SMMC Recognized as Among the Top Hospitals in the Nation for Quality and Affordable Care
Huntington, WV – St. Mary's Medical Center is one of only two hospitals in West Virginia and one of only thirty two hospitals in the nation to be designated as a top performer in a new healthcare initiative called "Quest: High Performing Hospitals." Quest was created by the Premier Incorporated healthcare alliance as a way to share data and best practices across the country to improve patient outcomes. Quest is a voluntary three-year project made up of 157 hospitals across 31 states.
Based on first-year results from the project, St. Mary's Medical Center received awards for top performance on the following performance goals:
- Save lives: Eliminate avoidable hospital mortalities.
- Safely reduce the cost of care: Reduce the costs for each patient's hospitalization.
- Deliver the most reliable and effective care: Ensure that patients receive every recommended evidence-based care measure.
"As participants in QUEST, we are making sure patients are getting the highest level of care without unnecessary expense. Our outcomes in the emergency room and in our intensive care units show outstanding survival rates," said Tyson Smith, MD, St. Mary's vice-president of medical affairs. "We're very proud of our first-year results."
"These remarkable results highlight what can be achieved when hospitals set high goals and focus on continuous improvement," said Susan DeVore, Premier President and CEO. "QUEST hospitals are outpacing the performance of others, proving that when hospitals work together in a collaborative forum, they bring the depth of their shared knowledge to the table. Such collaboration helps participants to reliably deliver the most efficient, effective and caring hospital experience for each and every patient, every single time."
About QUEST
Developed in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, QUEST is designed to springboard hospitals to new levels of performance and informs public policies with tangible results. To accomplish this, QUEST benchmarked participating facilities using data from Premier’s clinical database to determine the “baseline” level of performance in cost, mortality and evidence-based care delivery. Hospitals were then challenged to overcome the main factors that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs, and measure themselves against one another to achieve top performance.
