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Joint Commission
Accreditation
OSF
Saint Anthony a Quality Leader
Patient
Satisfaction and Service Quality
Quality
Reports
Saving
5 Million Lives Campaign
 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 is an independent, not-for-profit organization
that evaluates
and accredits nearly 16,000 health care organizations and
programs in the United States. Joint Commission 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 Joint Commission survey team at least every three
years. Our
Joint Commission information is available on the Joint Commission
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.
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 Anthony is home to four Centers
of Excellence that provides care for large numbers of patients.
The four Centers are The
Regional Heart Institute, Illinois
Neurosciences Institute, Center
for Cancer Care and our Emergency
and Trauma Services.
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 on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
Joint Commission 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 (CAP), congestive heart failure
(CH), pregnancy and related conditions and surgical procedures.
OSF Saint Anthony is currently participating in AMI, CAP and
CHF. This information can be found on our Quality
Reports web
page, in the Joint Commission report on OSF Saint Anthony that is linked
to our Joint Commission 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. OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center has earned
awards from 2002-2005. 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.
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