Ashtabula County Medical Center today announced it has been recognized as a 2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of health care organizations in the United States. ACMC was recognized as part of The Joint Commission’s 2014 annual report "America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety,” for attaining and sustaining excellence in accountability measure performance for Heart Attack, Pneumonia and Surgical Care. The recognition puts ACMC among the top 20% of hospitals across the nation. ACMC is one of 1,224 hospitals in the United States to achieve the 2013 Top Performer distinction. ACMC is the only hospital in Ashtabula County to be recognized for Heart Attack performance.“
“We understand what matters most to patients at ACMC is the quality and safety of the care they receive. That is why we have made it a top priority to improve positive patient outcomes through evidence-based care processes,” said Michael Habowski, ACMC Healthcare System President & CEO. “ACMC is proud to be named a Top Performer as it recognizes the knowledge, teamwork and dedication of our entire hospital staff.”
The Top Performer program recognizes hospitals for improving performance on evidence-based interventions that increase the chances of healthy outcomes for patients with certain conditions, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, children’s asthma, stroke, venous thromboembolism and perinatal care, as well as for inpatient psychiatric services and immunizations.
To be a 2013 Top Performer, hospitals had to meet three performance criteria based on 2013 accountability measure data, including:
- Achieving cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures;
- Achieving performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there were at least 30 denominator cases; and
- Having at least one core measure set that had a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and (within that measure set) all applicable individual accountability measures had a performance rate of 95 percent or above.
“Delivering the right treatment in the right way at the right time is a cornerstone of high-quality health care. I commend the efforts of ACMC for their excellent performance on the use of evidence-based interventions,” said Mark R. Chassin, M.D., FACP, M.P.P., M.P.H., president and CEO, The Joint Commission.
Habowski said reaching the level of Top Performer represents a continuous commitment to high quality patient care that began over 14 years ago when Caregivers set a goal to eliminate hospital-acquired illnesses.
In the mid-2000s, nationwide statistics showed an increase in illnesses acquired during a hospital stay. Ashtabula County Medical Center staff took notice and set out to make sure that the hospital’s patients didn’t become part of those statistics.
Teams were formed to tackle three of problems on the rise nationally – ventilator acquired pneumonia, central line associated blood stream infections, and clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection.
Through their efforts, new protocols and procedures were implemented to ensure the lowest risk for patients.
These protocols have proven to have all but ended hospital acquired illnesses at ACMC.
Here are three of the hospital’s success stories:
- ACMC has gone more than 1,500 days (over four years) without a central line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI).
- ACMC has not had a case of ventilator acquired pneumonia (VAP) in almost eight years. The last VAP incident was in December of 2006.
- ACMC has seen a significant reduction in the number of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections since 2011. Since that time, ACMC’s rate is approximately half the rate found in hospitals across the county.
“Each day, we focus on how we can improve the safety of our patients and the care they receive. Being recognized as a Top Performer is validation that our focus is spot-on,” Habowski said. “That recognition also aligns with our goal of keeping healthcare local so patients and their families do not have to travel out of town for quality, safe care. They can – and will – find nationally recognized, top level care right here at ACMC.”
For more information about the Top Performer program, visit http://www.jointcommission.org/accreditation/top_performers.aspx.