JC Accreditation
OSF Saint James a Quality Leader
Patient Satisfaction and Service Quality
Quality Reports
Saving 5 Million Lives
Hospital Report
Card Act
Measuring Quality
 Not
all medical centers and physicians are alike. Differences in quality
matter most when you need sophisticated medical care for a complex
condition. The doctor and medical center you choose will have a direct
impact on your care – especially when you need treatment for a serious
condition or disease.
Quality is measured in many different
ways. While there is no universal agreement on which method should be
used, the following criteria are often cited as quality indicators:
Medical Center Accreditation
The Joint Commission
(JC) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates
and accredits nearly 16,000 health care organizations and programs in
the United States. JC accreditation is recognized nationwide as a symbol
of quality that reflects an organization’s commitment to meeting certain
performance standards. To earn and maintain accreditation, an
organization must undergo an on-site survey by a JC survey team at
least every three years. Our JC information is available on the
JC Accreditation pages of this web site
and at www.jointcommission.org.
Physician Training
Board certification, or the international equivalent, means that doctors
have completed specialized training that a specialty board requires. To
earn board certification, physicians must have practiced for a specified
period of time and then pass a difficult written and oral examination.
Board certification is generally accepted as a good indication of
competence and experience. Ask your physician about her or his board
certifications. Additionally, some physicians are also board eligible,
meaning they have completed necessary education and training and are
waiting a required period of time before taking their board exam.
Experience Matters
For
complex specialized care, experience matters. According to the Annals of
Internal Medicine (September 17, 2002), the majority of studies find a
lower patient mortality rate for a given procedure when the medical
center or physician has high-volume experience performing that
procedure. Medical centers with a wide range of services treat more
complex medical conditions. These hospitals are better equipped to
manage complications, should they occur. Additionally, for complex
diseases your physician has more treatment options available.
OSF Saint James’ Emergency Department is staffed with physicians from
the Level I Trauma Center at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria.
And OSF Saint James’ close proximity to OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in
Bloomington and OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria means that
many highly trained specialists are available for consultation and
treatment related to a wide range of complex conditions.
Satisfied Patients
Patient satisfaction often reflects how willing doctors and nurses are
to listen, answer questions and explain treatments; how much time
doctors spend with patients; and if the medical center is clean and the
food is good. Patient satisfaction data can predict how satisfying your
experience is likely to be. Patient satisfaction information can be
found on our Patient Satisfaction and Service
Quality web page.
Other Sources of Health Care Quality
Information
Several industry and government
organizations provide information about health care quality and some
have proprietary reporting tools. The information these organizations
provide can help you make informed, accurate decisions about healthcare
quality.
Warning: Different agencies and consumer
reporting sites use different definitions, data sets, and time periods
and have different (or nonexistent) ways of normalizing data for
comparisons (severity adjustments).
Therefore, comparisons between sources
are not “apples to apples” and comparisons within a single source have
to be carefully analyzed before accurate conclusions can be made (read
the fine print!).
Joint Commission (JC)
JC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) developed a
set of research-based quality indicators that are used across the
nation. They have established standardized measures of quality in
selected patient populations including acute myocardial infarction
(AMI), community acquired pneumonia (PN), congestive heart failure
(HF), pregnancy and related conditions and surgical procedures. OSF
Saint James is currently participating in AMI, PN and HF. This
information can be found on our Quality
Reports web page, in the JC report on OSF Saint James that is
linked to our JC Accreditation web page, and
the
CMS website.
The Leapfrog Group
The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 by the Business
Roundtable and has support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Leapfrog's mission is to trigger giant leaps forward in the safety,
quality and affordability of health care by: supporting informed
healthcare decisions by those who use and pay for health care; and,
promoting high-value healthcare through incentives and rewards. More
than 165 Fortune 500 corporations and other large private and public
sector health benefits purchasers have joined The Leapfrog Group,
representing more than 36 million enrollees. For more information,
visit its
website.
The NRC Consumer Choice Award
National Research Corporation (NRC) annually provides Consumer Choice
Awards for the most-preferred hospitals in more than 140 U.S. Markets.
Winners are selected from the nation's most comprehensive, nationwide
consumer health care profile, the NRC Healthcare Market Guide. Data
represents consumer surveys from nearly 140,000 households in the U.S.
Consumer Choice Awards for hospitals are based on consumer preference
responses. For more information,
visit its website.
Healthgrades
Healthgrades is a private company that uses Med Par public data and
proprietary severity adjustment methodology to rank organizations on a
scale of 1-5 "stars" with 5 being excellent. Problems abound with this
data, which is two to three years old before it is released, and
Healthgrades issues its stars based on three years of data. As a result,
Healthgrades is not a true reflection of any medical center's current
practices. In addition, its severity adjustment methodology can not be
reproduced. Another limitation is that Med Par data includes only
Medicare patients who are over 65 years old and who are cared for in the
inpatient settings.
Illinois Foundation for Quality Health
Care
The Illinois Foundation for Quality Health Care (IFQHC) is the Quality
Improvement Organization (QIO) for the State of Illinois. QIOs work with
physicians and health care professionals to promote high quality medical
care for Medicare beneficiaries. IFQHC is contracted by the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to perform the designated quality
improvement activities. For more information on IFQHC,
visit its website.
Illinois Department of Public Health
The Illinois Department of Public Health is responsible for protecting
the state's 12.4 million residents, as well as countless visitors,
through the prevention and control of disease and injury. The
Department's nearly 200 programs touch virtually every age, aspect and
cycle of life. For more information,
visit its
website.
|
