Newswise — SEATTLE – (April 5, 2016) – Virginia Mason Medical Center has received the Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award for the fourth consecutive year, becoming the only hospital in Seattle and the Puget Sound area to reach this milestone.
The 2016 Outstanding Patient Experience Award positions Virginia Mason among the top 15 percent of medical centers in the United States for creating, through outstanding performance, a positive experience for patients during their hospital stay.
“When patients come to our hospital, they expect and deserve great service and a positive experience,” said Virginia Mason Chairman and CEO Gary S. Kaplan, MD. “This award is a testament to the dedication of all our team members in delivering on our commitment to ensure a truly remarkable experience for each patient.”
Healthgrades, an online resource for information about physicians and hospitals, evaluated 3,858 hospitals that submitted at least 100 patient experience surveys to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to identify hospital performance. The surveys covered admissions from April 2014 through March 2015.
Healthgrades then evaluated performance by applying a scoring methodology to 10 patient experience measures, using data collected from a 32-question patient experience survey of the hospital’s own patients. The survey questions focus on patients’ perspectives of their care in the hospital. Question topics range from cleanliness and noise levels in patient rooms to factors such as pain management and responsiveness to patients’ needs. The measures also include whether a patient would recommend the hospital to friends or family. “From the first call to make an appointment, to parking availability and friendliness of team members they meet in the halls, to the specific teams taking care of them, to the follow-up phone calls discussing care plans – it’s all part of the complete Virginia Mason experience,” Dr. Kaplan said.
To be recognized by Healthgrades, hospitals must meet eligibility requirements for consideration, which in addition to number of survey responses, includes clinical performance thresholds. Nationally, 2,965 hospitals met those requirements with 448 hospitals outperforming their peers, based on their patients’ responses in order to achieve this distinction.
Virginia Mason also received the Outstanding Patient Experience Award in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
To download a full copy of the Healthgrades report,visit www.Healthgrades.com/quality.
RSS