“Quality” is much more than a buzzword for our hospitals, and national organizations have taken notice. For the past several years, a number of our hospitals have participated in a collaborative organized by a leading health care improvement organization called Premier. This collaborative, called QUEST, includes 350 health systems that volunteered to share data and set a top performance goal for both participants and the nation.
The collaborative agreed to be measured in six areas. Only 16 percent of hospitals in the collaborative achieved top performance in at least four of those six areas. Six of those hospitals were ours.
I would like to congratulate Baptist Booneville, Baptist Collierville, Baptist Huntingdon and Baptist Tipton for earning QUEST Citations of Merit; Baptist Union City, which was named a QUEST Award finalist; and Baptist Union County, a QUEST Award winner.
Hospitals that participate in the QUEST collaborative have saved more than 176,000 lives, reduced health care spending by more than $15 billion and improved readmission rates by 32 percent. I am so proud that our hospitals contributed to that success.
This is just one of many examples of excellence happening in our facilities every day. Keep up the good work everyone! You are truly making a difference in the lives of our patients and our communities. Thank you for your commitment to top-quality care and service.
Finally, I would like to remind everyone to take the mandatory Health Stream refresher courses by next Thursday, June 30, if you haven’t already. Taking these courses is a Medicare and Medicaid requirement, and they help ensure everyone is familiar with topics such as patient safety and emergency preparedness. It is vitally important – for our patients, one another and for Baptist – that we all complete these courses. If we hope to continue offering the quality care that Premier and other organizations recognize, we must constantly sharpen our skills and strengthen our knowledge of important health care topics. Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.
What’s on your mind? Feel free to email me, tweet me @jason_m_little or find me on LinkedIn.