Wednesday, July 06, 2011
The Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET), the not-for-profit research and education affiliate of the American Hospital Association (AHA), recently named Novant Health as a top performer for increasing quality and efficiency. Only three healthcare organizations were given this distinction among the 250 organizations HRET evaluated.
The other organizations singled-out by HRET were Piedmont Health in Georgia and Banner Health in Arizona. All three organizations were featured in a HRET/AHA-published report: Striving for Top Box: Hospitals Increasing Quality and Efficiency. The report featuring the three top-performing hospitals shares key strategies, such as accountability, physician engagement and team approaches that make these organizations successful. To produce the report, HRET reviewed quality indicators, conducted site visits and interviewed leaders at all three organizations.
Best practices at these organizations were compiled in the report to serve as a resource for other healthcare organizations across the country.
Specifically, the report recognizes Novant Health’s strides in reducing variation in cost, standardizing processes, increasing IT infrastructure and data reporting creating accountability for performance improvement, identifying and implementing best practices across the organization and engaging clinicians and physicians. The report also acknowledges that in 90 percent of CMS publicly reported quality measures, Novant Health was in the top 10th percentile for 2010.
“The physicians and staff at Novant Health are very engaged and united in our focus to continually improve the quality, safety and efficiency of medical care in our hospitals, outpatient facilities and medical practices. Ultimately, this focus is the foundation to providing remarkable care to our patients,” said Stephen Wallenhaupt, MD, Novant Health chief medical officer. “We appreciate the recognition of the great work that is done across our organization.”
To read a copy of the HRET Striving for Top Box: Hospitals Increasing Quality and Efficiency report, visit: http://www.hret.org/topbox/index.shtml.
