Study: Owensboro Medical Health System Among Top 5% in the Nation for Patient Safety
OWENSBORO, Ky (March 31, 2010) – Owensboro Medical Health System (OMHS) has been identified as a top hospital for patient safety, according to a new study released today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization. The study names OMHS as a recipient of the 2010 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award™, indicating that its patient safety ratings are in the top 5% of U.S. hospitals.
OMHS is one of only 74 hospitals in the nation to receive both this award and HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence, which recognizes the top five percent of hospitals nationally for outstanding clinical excellence.
Medicare patients at hospitals receiving the HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award were, on average, 43% less likely to experience a patient safety event.
The seventh annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals study analyzed nearly 40 million hospitalization records from approximately 5,000 hospitals nationwide that participate in the Medicare program. Participation in the HealthGrades study is not voluntary and hospitals cannot choose to opt out of the analysis.
If all hospitals performed at the level of Patient Safety Excellence Award™ recipients like OMHS, approximately 218,572 patient safety events and 22,590 Medicare deaths could have been avoided while saving the U.S. approximately $2.1 billion in excess costs from 2006 through 2008.
“We have sought to develop processes and systems that focus on patient safety,” said Dr. Bill Bryant, patient safety officer for OMHS. “We are a much safer hospital today thanks to our physicians, nurses and employees who have challenged how we do things and developed better ways to care for our patients.”
“On behalf of HealthGrades I’d like to congratulate OMHS for a track record of patient safety that is among the best in the nation,” said Rick May, MD, a vice president at HealthGrades and co-author of the study. “Hospitals like OMHS are setting benchmarks of superior performance that we would like to see other hospitals emulate.”
The seventh annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study applies methodology developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to identify the incidence rates of 15 patient safety indicators among Medicare patients at virtually all of the nation's nearly 5,000 nonfederal hospitals. Additionally, HealthGrades applied its methodology using 12 patient safety indicators to identify the best-performing hospitals, or Patient Safety Excellence Award™ Hospitals, which represent the top 5% of all U.S. hospitals. HealthGrades developed this award to give patients more information about choosing a hospital.
In the HealthGrades analysis, the following are the patient safety indicators studied:
Owensboro Medical Health System serves an eleven-county region in western Kentucky and southern Indiana. The hospital received Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence Awards in 2009 and 2010 from HealthGrades, placing it among the top five percent of hospitals in the nation for quality. OMHS also operates the HealthPark—a medical-based fitness center—and a number of ancillary clinics and diagnostic centers. The organization provides healthcare services through MultiCare regional clinics in Madisonville, Beaver Dam (KY) and Tell City (IN) well as The Clinic at Wal-Mart in Owensboro, Henderson (KY) and Newburgh (IN).