Quality & Patient Satisfaction

Hospital performance Data in Rhode Island

For all hospitals, the standards for the treatment of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia (community acquired), referred to as "core measures," are the basis for reporting and measuring the quality of hospital care. These core measures have been selected because they are the most common causes for admission to a hospital, and unlike other conditions, there is universal agreement on which practice is best each. Also included as a core measure in evaluating quality care are standards related to surgical infection prevention for selected surgeries.

The scores on the following chart reflect the percentage of times patients at South County Hospital received the recommended treatment for each of the "core measures." See definitions to learn more about these "best-practice" measures.

Appropriate Care Measure Data

Appropriate Care Measures	South County Hospital* 1/10 - 9/10	State Average**	National Average**	Top 10% of Hospitals**
Acute Myocardial Infarction	98%	98%	93%	98%
Congestive Heart Failure	99%	92%	98%	93%
Pneumonia	97%	91%	94%	95%
Surgical Care Improvement	96%	96%	95%	96%

Along with our third party administer for patient satisfaction surveys is the public reporting survey used for hospital patients. HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a national, standardized survey of hospital patients. HCAHPS (pronounced “H-caps”) was created to publicly report the patient’s perspective of hospital care. The survey asks a random sample of recently discharged patients about important aspects of their hospital experience.

The HCAHPS results posted on Hospital Compare allow consumers to make fair and objective comparisons between hospitals, and of individual hospitals to state and national benchmarks, on ten important measures of patients' perspectives of care.

The following examples measure patient satisfaction in regards to South County Hospital based on HCAHPS:

Patient Satisfaction ***

For further information regarding hospital comparisons on Patient Satisfaction, you can visit the following link: http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

* The percentages or scores represent South County Hospital data from January 2010 through September 2010. This is the most recent data available for posting.

** These percentages or scores are from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009. Data Source: CMS Hospital Compare Database – 3Q2010 release – Hospital Association of Rhode Island.

*** Patient satisfaction data is from patients who had overnight hospital stays from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009. Data Source: CMS Hospital Compare Database – 3Q2010 release – Hospital Association of Rhode Island.

To learn more
We invite you to learn more about quality at South County Hospital. There are also a number of Web sites dedicated to the topic of hospital quality and patient safety that you may wish to review. As always, we welcome your comments and questions. For more information, contact Elaine Desmarais, Vice President of Quality & Regulatory Compliance, at 401-782-8000 or edesmarais@schospital.com