| SPRINGFIELD – Baystate Medical Center, a national leader in patient safety and health care quality, scored higher than national and state averages and is close to the top performers nationally on nearly all of the measures on a new Web site called Hospital Compare, which allows health care consumers to compare the quality of care in nearly all of the nation’s hospitals.
By visiting www.hospitalcompare.hhs.
gov or www.medicare.gov and selecting Compare Hospitals in Your Area, or by calling 1-800-633-4227, consumers will get free information to help them make more informed health care decisions.
“Baystate Medical Center’s high scores acknowledge the hard work and dedication of its staff in always putting the patient first,” said Dr. Evan Benjamin, vice president for Health Care Quality at Baystate Health System.
“Hospital Compare can be used to help understand part of the quality of care certain hospitals provide, what the hospitals are doing to improve, and what that means for patients,” he added.
Hospital Compare was developed by CMS, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with the Hospital Quality Alliance and nearly every acute care hospital nationwide. It reports about quality of care provided in hospitals to all adult patients, regardless of payer, on three common conditions, heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia.
MassPRO, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization in Mass-achusetts, plays a pivotal role in improving hospital quality by offering hands-on resources, one-on-one training and staff education.
“Consumers and health care providers can now compare data that accurately reflect the overall quality of care at different hospitals,” said Jeffrey East, president and CEO of MassPRO. “Equally important, the public release of this data will motivate even the best hospitals to constantly monitor and improve patient care,” he added.
East said MassPRO is already working collaboratively with hospitals on quality improvement, from revising operating room procedures to significantly reducing their risk of surgical infection. Projects also include efforts to improve the speed at which heart attack patients receive aspirin in the emergency room, when indicated, and introducing new procedures to assure those same patients get the correct medication advice when they are discharged.
Baystate Medical Center has invested in quality measurement, improvement ,and patient safety over the past 10 years. One of the first hospitals nationally to have the Safety Reporting System and a Physician Computerized Order System, BMC has long been committed to quality. Baystate has won numerous national and state awards for its efforts to improve quality and patient safety.
Benjamin noted Baystate “voluntarily” reported this information for Hospital Compare because of its “commitment to quality improvement.”
“We are committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for all of our patients,” said Benjamin. “The commitment to enhance quality and patient safety comes from the highest level of our organization.”
CMS’s involvement in Hospital Compare is one component of its Hospital Quality Initiative, which is part of a national initiative to improve the quality of care in our nation’s nursing homes, home health agencies and hospitals like Baystate Medical Center.
As the flagship hospital of Baystate Health System, Baystate Medical Center in Springfield is the region’s only tertiary care referral medical center and Level I Trauma Center, and is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. The 608-bed academic teaching hospital is the Western Campus of Tufts University School of Medicine, and serves as a regional source for specialty medical care and research, while providing comprehensive primary medical services to the community. Baystate also has the only Children’s Hospital in the region and provides general and specialized care for infants, children, and adolescents throughout the local community and Western New England. |
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